CHAPTER 2: The Everlosing Argument
“So, let me get this straight again…”
Lomy kept on swinging over the back of the chair; it had collapsed twice already, but the elf just stayed mid-air and took it back with a flinch of his hand. He had popped with no warning in the kitchen and wouldn’t go away.
“…you don’t just let him ride you, you also share consciousness with him, like some sort of bond, or whatever?”
Eragon ignored him completely. The death of Ajihad had led an heavy stroke on their victory; if that wasn’t enough, Murtagh was dead and gone as well, another lost filling with grief the young Rider’s soul. Finally, he had another agonizing stitch of back pain. He and Saphira had left their rooms and barely finished to think about the current predicament of the Varden and confirmed their decision of travelling to complete their training with the elves, when Lomy had appeared out of nowhere in a puff of smoke.
For the last time, aye. The bond is made when a dragon is still in his egg; when the right one is near, he decides to hatch and make the one his or her Rider.
The little elf blinked his long wide eyes in surprise.
“So it was your decision? You weren’t even forced to do it? It just seems so off.. dragonwise, I mean. How many did you change insofar? Five? Seven?”
Eragon is and will always be my only Rider.
“What do you mean only one? glancing shortly at Eragon, who still sat on the table He’s a puny human, couldn’t possibly have been around for all your.. what? Four, five hundred?»
Saphira grunted, amused by the last affirmation of the young elf. Like Arya, he was the only one beside Eragon to treat her and address her as a full-fledged intelligent being, an appreciable trait, if one managed to overlook his loathsome attitude, something the Rider was not keen to at the moment. To further his irritation, Saphira didn’t seemed to have much problem chatting with him about that nonsense.
I’m only six months old.
The bewildered look and sudden immobility of Lomy seemed to please even more the dragon.
“You got. To be. Freaking. Kidding me. jumping over towards her Not even a year old?! You’re not even a cub, you’re just a.. a.. baby. A frigging hatchling out of the egg! It takes centuries for dragons to grow, how can you possibly be a year old?!”
Eragon shook his head and got up, still gloomy.
“You fancy yourself to know a great deal about dragons, Lomy, but most of it appears to be wrong.”
“Is not!”
Eragon was about to try and change the subject, hoping to pull out some insight on Ajihad’s last moments from Lomy, but a human boy called for him, nervously informing him he had been just summoned to the Council of Elders. The young Rider was about to thank the messenger when Lomy jumped from beyond his shoulder to inquire.
“Is that some kind of magi court? Ah, never mind, I’ll find out by myself.”
Jarsha, the young boy, moved anxiously from one foot to the other, tormenting his fingers.
“Hem.. elf, sir, you.. the Council, they invited only Argetlam. I…”
“Well little boy, hugging Jarsha from the back and smirking I’d like to see them try to keep me out. »
****************************
Arya wasn’t surprised when she saw Lomyolèndri preceding Eragon into the corridor to the Elders’ Council chamber. The young elf had proven impervious to any kind of approach to shed light on his inexplicable coming and didn’t even seemed to care at all about returning to his kin. At first she thought it could have been the shock, perhaps enhanced by magical strain, but now she had grown more confident the young elf’s behavior was genuine. That, along with his apparently unending reserve of magical power, had aroused new suspicions in Arya’s mind. While he had been zapping back and forth across the whole Tronjheim from after Ajihad’s death, she knew he would have somehow shown up when the succession matters of the Varden would have been discussed.
“Well, it is pretty clear to me by now that you’re not the boss around here, dragon’s dude, so why would I care? I never saw a dwarf city with so little magical warding, I tell you. If the wanted to keep me out, they should have…”
“Atra esterní ono thelduin, Lomyolèndri-finiarel.”
The young elf stopped himself, pondering for a while before pointing at her, smiling and answering in the ancient language.
“Yeah, hello there, elf buddy. Come to peek in humans’ business as well?”
“I will offer my advice to the Varden’s Council whenever they will ask for it.”
“Blah blah hypocritical fluff blah blah. Come on, now! Let’s go meddling!”
“I will rather speak with you first for a moment now, in private.”
“This may be really very interesting or really very boring, depending on how much innuendo was actually there inside.”
Arya slowly shook her head, before shifting back to the human tongue and addressing Eragon and Saphira, still waiting beside Lomyolèndri, and the messenger boy, facing the wide stone door for the Council chamber.
“Eragon, I will take Lomyolèndri from here; go ahead, I will join you later.”
The Rider mumbled a thank you and slipped away, while Lomyolèndri hovered closer to her, with fingers crossed.
“So, is it going to be frolicking or long boring conversation?”
“It will just be a minute, young Lomyolèndri. We need to solve the problem of your appearance here in Tronjheim.”
The young elf groaned, lashing the head back.
“Damn, it’s the second one, isn’t it?”
“In future I would also ask you if you’d be so kind to converse with me in the tongue of humans, as I know now you can speak it rather well, to avoid causing any offence on their part.”
Lomyolèndri frowned, putting his fists on his sides.
“Well, that doesn’t seem very elfy of us. Who cares about humans or dwarves anyway? Oh, I get it! It’s some kind of false compliance thing, right? Got it. Have to start now?”
“No. I will need this conversation to happen in our people’s tongue.”
turning to the door «What do you think dragon’s dude’s talking about? I’m going to check out.»
“Please, Lomyolèndri, focus for a little time, may you do that, as a sign of kindness for me?”
“Fffine. But why are we going to talk elven again?”
“I’ll need for this conversation to be truthful; I’m sorry if this offends you, but in the recent events we can’t be too careful.”
The young elf considered far longer than usual the last phrase, circling around the hall. For the second time from when he awakened, Arya considered reading his mind. The first time was when he refused to give any insight on the death of Ajihad, but she dismissed it quickly. With the Twins gone, she might have been the only one able to safely penetrate another elf’s mind, but if her recent suspicions were wrong, she couldn’t risk traumatizing one of the few existing elf children in Alagaësia.
“Oh, I get it! Come on, this should be fun! Go on with the first question!”
“If you know how did you came here, please, tell me.”
“Yeah, I got around that by now. It was a slight accident with an enchanted item.”
“So it wasn’t linked with your ability to teleport yourself?”
“Pff! What? Nah. I can puff that way only for short distances, this is waaaay farther.”
“How much?”
“Beats me.”
A young woman entered the room and Arya turned to greet her, while Lomyolèndri dived down, rapidly circling her.
“Who’s this who’s this who’s this?”
shifting to human tongue «Lomyolèndri, may I present you Nasuada, daughter of Ajihad… Nasuada, this is Lomyolèndri.”
The young woman turned over, trying to pull herself out of the young elf orbit without appearing too rude.
“It is always a pleasure meeting an…”
shifting to human tongue «Whoa, whoa, hold on here! turning to Arya and pointing at the woman The dead boss dude had an heir and we’re still here rusting?”
“Please, Lomyolèndri-finiarel, listen to me…”
“Nah, bored now. And dragon’s dude’s still inside. That’s it! I’m going to interfere the Hells out this succession thing.”
“No, wait!”
****************************
Umérth cleaned his throat before taking word again.
“Ajihad’s funeral will be held in two days. Directly af-”
puffing in “Bam! Now listen to me, you.. Whoa!”
Lomy snickered flying over the chamber and looking around.
“For being a Council of Elders there’s really little old humans here. Anyway…”
Before it could go on, the doors where shut opened and Arya entered the room, shortly followed by Nasuada.
“We’re sorry to interrupt you, Elders. We shall leave immediately. Lomyolèndri?”
One of the women at the table, after an unpleasant look at the others, answered back to the elf.
“Aye, it will be better; we shall summon you shortly, ambassador. turning to Lomyolèndri Unfortunately as for you, we c-”
“Oh, just shut up!”
“I.. beg your pardon?”
“You’ve had a chance to solve this. You took too long to decide, since you’re a mess in dealing with this, _I_’ll do it myself.”
At that affirmation the large man assumed an outraged look.
“The Varden are a free government! We accept advice from elves, but we do not answer to you.”
“Oh lichdust, puh-_lease_. landing on the center of the table and bending over him You’re human rebels allied with an elven kingdom, of course you answer to us. We got the magic, we got the smarts, we got the long-life. What you got? A bunny’s reproduction rate? Pff, like that’s gonna matter in the long run.”
“Ambassador, you do realize this is outrageous. I must ask you to take your colleague and leave this room.”
Lomy snickered walking on the table to the last woman who spoke.
“You may, but we shan’t. So, let’s analyze this: you had a ruler who wasn’t neither smart enough to go out adventuring with a cleric, nor cool enough to spring a boy, just some lame chick-heiress. You just have to-”
A burst of clamors filled the chamber; the middle aged woman stood up, half a meter below the boy’s head.
“How dare you!”
“Hoy now, no talk back to the elf. See this? pointing at its ears This means I can say whatever I like and you have to shut up and take it. Why? Because you just can’t argue with elves, duh?… Now, there’s only one way this has to go for all-out gain: you just have to take the lame non-manly chick-heiress and marry her to the überpowerful dragon knight dude.”
The proposal was so unexpected and unthinkable that for a first moment Eragon remained completely speechless; Arya was the one to break the silence first.
“What!?!”
“What what? It’s the perfect solution: she’s got the blood connections, he’s got the dragon. The only even better solution would have been to have the dragon eat all of the other candidates and call dibs on the dungeon, but that would have feasible only if she weren’t a one year old treasureless baby.”
“You may not know, Lomyolèndri-finiarel, but Eragon is supposed to complete is training in Du Weldenvarden, he cannot stay here to lead the Varden.”
“Pffh, pointing at Elessari Like they wouldn’t be able to play him like a puppet into staying as a useless pawn, he’s just a frigging kid, how smart can he be?”
Once again wounded in his pride, Eragon was finally able to snap out of the shock.
“Ehi! I’m-!”
“Shush, grown-ups are talking. vanishing and reappearing behind Arya Besides, he doesn’t need to lead anything. He marries, goes out to Elfland and then, whenever he’s done, he’ll have the leverage to make us.. I mean.. to genuinely lead the rebel guys at best of capabilities. Rising an index And..!»
Lomy closed in more behind Arya’s head to whisper something to her; the action alone was enough to upset Eragon for some reason, watching that snotty young elf practically embracing her, smirking and speaking to her with complicity, but he felt even worst when Arya gazed at him from the other side of the room, with a flicker of incredulity and outrage shadowing her eyes.
Can you hear anything?
Some words
Saphira grumped, lowering her neck.
…he’s talking in the ancient language.
Blast. What he could be saying? Why is she looking at me like that?
Finally Arya’s stifling gaze moved away from the young Rider and turned to Lomy, who smiled and nodded.
“So there you have it, in the ancient whatever truth-telling tongue. flying again towards the table Now, for you I don’t see the problem. Well, besides stupidity. The other boss appointed him anyway before he died.”
“What!?!”
“Don’t mock the buddy elf, dude. And who were you deciding to appoint as new boss anyway?
“Hemm…”
As Jörmundur eyes moved to Nasuada, Lomy let out another giggle that sent a shiver through Eragon’s spine.
“And then you complain when we call you idiots.”
That reunion was going far worst that Eragon had imagined; he had already agreed to support Nasuada’s claim to command, hoping to receive help by Arya later, but now Lomy had upset the whole thing.
It’s impossible, no one will ever approve such an idea. He isn’t even an ambassador, how could he even come here?
I can still burn him, you know, little one.
Try to talk to Arya, maybe she’ll tell you what he said to her, we can figure out something.
As Eragon desperately tried to find a way out of that situation, the elf continued to fly over the heads of the Elders, spouting other preposterous sentences.
“So, do you prefer to appoint as your next new boss a kid who is probably gullible but may or may not have hidden talents for leadership, or will you appoint as your next new boss a kid who is probably gullible and may or may not have hidden talents for leadership but will be so far away he couldn’t do anything anyway, leaving the whole thing to you? Come on.. what’s what you really want here?”
While Jörmundur expression clearly showed his outrage, the other members of the Council where already exchanging shady looks with each other.
So? Anything?
I don’t know. She wouldn’t talk to me.
That’s bad. That’s bad…
Eragon clenched the border of the table with sweaty fingers, trying to think of something; he was about to formulate some kind of objection when Elessari, after cleaning her throat, cut out his sentence before he could start it, speaking with an uncertain pondering tone.
“Well, the Varden would rejoice for such a union…”
Already more sure, Falberd followed swiftly.
“Of course. It will unite us; it’ll bring new faith to the people. And if it was Ajihad’s will… Even if you were to leave, Eragon, the everlasting bound between you and Lady Nasuada will reassure both the soldiers and the common folk you still care about them and will undoubtedly return to fight for them.”
“Yeah! Go for the old chain and ball! snickering Like for ghosts, but can’t exorcize marriage, you can’t… reappearing floating over Eragon, echoing Everlasting.. everlasting.. everlaaasting! Eh eh. Ghosts.»
“This is insane!”
Eragon got up from the chair violently; the gesture was swift enough to make Lomy startle and teleport on the other side of the room, which was by itself a little satisfaction for the Rider.
“I can’t marry Nasuada! I barely know her, we have almost never even spoke to each other! How can you force us into this? We-we don’t know if we could be the right one to spend a life with to each other. shifting his confused gaze from Nasuada, to the Elders, to Arya I don’t even know if I could.. if she could be the one I could…»
“What? Dude! floating to him with open arms This’s nothing about love. Elluvia, it’s not about sex either.. well, beside that one fling you’ll need to do once in a while to sprung an heir into her belly, rolling his eyes but that’s a whole other topic… This is an arranged marriage we’re talking about! It’s all about convenience. And politics!»
Umérth nodded and bashed his fist on the table.
“Yeah!.. looking around, suddenly embarrassed Humm, sorry. But he’s right, Argetlam: this propositions assure a fair deal for every one of us.”
“«Excuse me, Elders of the Council…”
This time had been Nasuada to inadvertently interrupt Eragon; the daughter of Ajihad, chin held high and eyes steady, advanced calmly to the table, with a cold and determined look that sent some of the Elders covering uneasy in their chairs.
“…a great sorrow has descended upon me recently. My father, Ajihad, is gone. I know my duty, I knew the burden of his lead could come to me and I know it is in your interest searching for the solution which would be best for our people. But, since you so easily are persuaded by the words of a stranger, for how noble he may be, I’ll ask you let me express my opinion on the matter, since it appears I’m a part of it.”
Eragon saw the determination and indignation of her heart in the shining of her eyes, sure her words would cut through the Elders’ new deliberation. But the elf did not see. Jörmundur gave Nasuada sign to go on, in the uncertainty of the other Elders, but Lomy ignored him, hovering to her and pointing a finger to her face with derision in his eyes.
“You have no say in the matter. You’re both children, dragon’s dude and you. You’re only here to provide a ‘Yes’ and, in the near future, as many babies as your womb can manage before it breaks. He he. Opinion. By a human chick.”
Lomy shrugged, backing away from her with a smile and open arms.
“Besides, this is the best thing for you too, now that your daddy’s dead. If you were to remain without an alleged man, what kind of credibility-breaking rumors will you start? You’re a human, you’re not supposed to frolic your way across the woods like we do? Am I right? tapping Arya’s side with his elbow and leering Am I right? flying away and cleaning his throat So, in conclusion, the decision is between us and the not-really-Elder Elder dudes. Actually it’s only between me and that one, pointing at Arya but didn’t want to hurt any low-lived man feelings, do we?, so I added some humans in the deal, just as a pat-pat-good-boy thingy. And now, can we put a vote on the damn thing and finish this? I’m kinda starting to shift from bored to annoyed here…”
OrganicLead on 9 October 2013, 09:34 said:
Am I supposed to be rooting for Eragon in this one?
Sìlfae on 9 October 2013, 10:30 said:
Well, I wouldn’t know, consider it is just a parody at its first chapters; Lomy certainly isn’t a likable character, I suppose having the protagonist not to have his way as was intended and having the npcs make his situation more dire rather than help and congratulate him could potentially create some sort of sympathetic feeling towards him? Although mildly inconvenience and some offence should be enough to redeem Eragon in the eyes of the public? I don’t think I would go that far, personally…
Anyway, if there are problems, critics about the first chapters or specific comments about what wasn’t likable, please, feel free to write about, I would like to have some opinions on the text.
OrganicLead on 9 October 2013, 12:37 said:
So far I’m feeling bad for Eragon since Lomy’s coming off very… kenderish and chaotic stupid for lack of a better descriptor. He seems to act like he’s five, which really doesn’t lend to his persuasive power and it’s even weirder to have other people actually following the “they’re just kids” mentality when he seems like he’s even younger in maturity. It feels kind of off to me.
Sìlfae on 9 October 2013, 13:33 said:
Well, yes, Lomy is childish and appears as a child, but he’s not an elf child (as it is pointed out in the Prologue), his real Creature Type gives a better idea on why he behaves like this.
It is still the beginning, so I’m not spoiling future passages in that regard, but the, let’ say leniency, of the reactions is part of the satire against the original work: considering the preconceptions of humans regarding elves in Eragonland (“They’re the bestest creatures evah! So perfect and infallible!”), people around assumed by default Lomy must have been good, kind, gentle, smart and wise far beyond his years (they did it for Eragon just because he was a Rider, no matter his behavior, right?); that is actually the description a few elven children in Ellesmera get in Brisingr. Rather than it’s just a kid, the characters are more going on the lines of “he must have hit his head hard when he got here, surely he will come to his senses, any minute now.”
For Arya it is because he’s a child: Paolini, like others, says elves rarely spawn and that their children are their most valued treasure; still, until now, she’s the less trustful, even if Lomy didn’t targeted her much with his pranks.
The point that is mocked is that in Eragonland (again, it happens in other works and in D&D as well) the good elves are always right. Why? But of course, because they are elves. As Lomy points out, the sharpened ears give him the higher ground by default, regardless of his actual expertise.
Epke on 9 October 2013, 20:02 said:
What’s up with these?
Lomy is a very unsympathetic character that’s borderline overpowered, annoying, acts like a child yet still gets everyone to agree with him, despite what we’ve seen from the characters in the novels. Honestly, and I don’t want to sound mean now, but this reads as the poorer sort of fanfiction you’d find on LiveJournal: a main character who doesn’t conform to the new setting (limitations on magic being the most glaring one), gets his way even though he’s resoundingly insulting everyone present and has all the attention shift to him despite there being people of equal/greater fame/status in the same room (Hello, Ariana Black!).
NPCs? Really?
Finally, this can be a satirical work, sure, but if it is, I think a solid piece has to be footnotes to explain what parts are satire and what are, excuse my French, crummy writing.
OrganicLead on 9 October 2013, 21:40 said:
A character’s race should never be brought up to defend a character’s actions. While it may explain why he is the way he is, it doesn’t magically make his behavior any less irritating.
I can work with that, though I’d be a bit more satisfied if there were at least a few quips of dialogue along the line of, “He is a stranger, should we really listen to his-” “He is an elf, of course he knows what it is he speaks of.” or if Lomy were just a bit more subtle in his elitism.
Sìlfae on 10 October 2013, 04:29 said:
Sorry, they’re mid-dialogue actions; I can’t preview and forgot asterisks would turn the text bold, rather than appear as asterisks; it also cut out the lines dividing the paragraphs between different points of view; for the next chapters I’ll be using parentesis.
Don’t worry, I appreciate the critics, feel free to write about what you do not find likable; even if you consider it wholly bad, I’m not offended, just say exactly what you didn’t like and why, so I can learn from it.
Lomy is created to be unsympathetic and to have something of a base sense of humor, so it is quite expected for a reader not to enjoy him and feel sorry for the characters around him. In regards of Magic, consider there hasn’t been an actual confrontation until now, the other characters, for a reason or another, are holding back; Lomy by himself in D&D would be a middle-to-low threat, as a magical creature he has natural spell-like abilities, he’s not an actual wizard, and right now he only used a bunch of Fly and Dimension Door spells; they appear overpowered in Eragonland mostly because in D&D spells usually do not waste physical energies; part of why the characters are treating him gently is because they don’t know yet how his Magic works and they naturally assumed from their point of view he must have been some sort of powerful wizard to silent-cast and employ spells so casually, even if he’s not (and from that point, Arya is trying to understand what’s the deal with him).
Now, from the second part of the comment, if I assume you’re thinking about the possibility of Lomy stealing permanently the spotlight from Eragon and the others, revealing himself to be the ‘true hero’ and saving the day, no, that is not what I’m going for. It is not the wish-fulfillment narration I enjoy and Lomy, from many point of views can be seen as an actual villain.
I guess the first chapters might give this idea and so some of the next ones, but it depends mostly on the two factors already exposed: he’s an elf and he’s unkwown magic. Some would say it still shouldn’t be enough to give him already so much attention, but this is Eragonland, remember how much obsessive attention was given in the original book to the first elf appearing on the pages? It is sort of the same thing, rather than being an wounderful encounter pleasant to Eragon, it is grotesque and annoying. Putting on the limelight a character that is blatantly insufferable still for the same supposedly intrinsic virtues makes the mistake more evident and I guess exposes as well the same attitude employed in that kind of fanfictions, where the new main character is annoying and bossy even if the author sees it as humble and noble.
Right now also the focus is more towards Lomy because the plot is still more or less in the original trails, the more it will go astray, the more I will be able to shift back to the main characters without being repetitive.
Well, certainly look so even in the actual books…
Usually I prefer not to explain the work unless explicitly asked, I think it limitates the possibilities of interpretation by the readers, but anyway: yes, it is a parody, it is a parody of the Inheritance Cycle, both in setting and narration, it is a parody of D&D and it is a parody of fanfiction (what with being a crossover for starters…). Lomy is intended to have a somewhat vulgar sense of humor and is intended to be annoying, it is intended to be an obstacle to the protagonist while exposing the nonsense in Eragon’s setting and unknowingly exposing some of the nonsense of his own setting, it is not there to solve the plot, it’s there to make the plot more messy. And certainly the story isn’t about “Lomy ending up in Eragon land” either, it just starts like that.
Of course, that then can be employed appropriately or not and in the latter case I’m happy to receive critics and complaints to improve the work.
Yes, I know given like that it sounds like a simplicistic answer, but it will be explored in the plot. Anyway, I’m not saying it gives a justification, it gives an explanation; taking a different example, you can say a dragon behaves differently from a human mostly because it is a dragon: it has a different biology, a different mindset and was raised in a very different environment; it doesn’t necessarily give a justification if the dragon is evil, but it gives a reason.
Well, that does happen:
“How dare you!”
“Hoy now, no talk back to the elf. See this? (pointing at its ears) This means I can say whatever I like and you have to shut up and take it. Why? Because you just can’t argue with elves, duh?”
He even actually spells out the trope
Consider that the Council of Elders does not want Lomy (or Arya) meddling in their affairs and refuse to listen to him (trying actually to kick him out of the room) until he suggests a course of action which is in their favour (remember the Elders wanted to sockpuppet Nasuada and have Eragon as their vassal? By making him de jure leader through the arranged marriage and then allowing the elves to take him away they become the de facto ruling body of the Varden by objectifying away Nasuada and chaining permanently Eragon to their State, in a manner akin to the dwarves’ adoption).
The fact Lomy isn’t subtle about his elitism is because Lomy isn’t really elitist (not in that way, at least), he’s just pretending to be an elf, which, for him, means playing the stereotipical snotty, bossy, hypocritical, plotting elf.
OrganicLead on 10 October 2013, 11:25 said:
Now I’m really curious to see where this is going. When I made my initial comment, I wasn’t sure if this was going to go in the direction with Lomy as a magical plot fixer or if there was more to it than that. Look forward to seeing where this is going now that I know it’s not a case of an author loving their character more than we do.
Sìlfae on 10 October 2013, 14:09 said:
Thank you, I hope it does not disappoint the expectations.
As alredy pointed out, if there are things which are not liked or seem not understandable or plotholes, please do tell, I’m certainly not offended by criticism, I’m happy to explain or acknowledge.
Well, no, of course; despite the title, Lomy isn’t the only piece of D&D we’re going to see and, regardless of that, we shall maintain focus on Eragon, Roran and Arya, plus maybe some other minor character from Inheritance. As I said, I’m also keeping focus on Lomy right now because the plot hasn’t changed much yet, if I moved to Eragon right now it wouldn’t be much different from the original book, but it’ll happen in the future. I’d say just another three chapter, mostly.
And yes, as already pointed out, Lomy is not here to fix the plot, he’s more of an obstacle; answering now some of the other points I missed in Epke’s post, about the other characters’ responses, I’m curious, which ones you saw as out of characters?
Because I tried to remain as faithful as possible to the original in that regard:
Eragon is annoyed and confused, annoyed because Lomy is rude with him, confused because, being an elf, he espected him to be like Arya. He doesn’t react outright violently because Eragon didn’t usually react violently to other characters who were merely rude with him in the original story, because they always get punished by the Plot itself (Sloan gets scolded by Horst when he’s mean to him at the beginning, the Twins get scolded by Orik first during the entrance test and by Arya soon after during the magic test, the Elder Council gets rebuked by Nasuada, Vanir gets threatened by Saphira after that one duel and so on…). The only difference in this case is that nobody is coming to punish Lomy, so Eragon for the first time in his career has to deal by himself with someone who is not his enemy but is not nice to him either. What a shocking dilemma.
Arya is also confused (because she knows how actual elven children behave) and someone could say reasonably scared: being the more experienced wizard in the area she knows that some of the things Lomy is doing (like teleporting himself or supposedly having unlimited energy reserve) are not at all possible in Eragonland’s system; she doesn’t talk back because she doesn’t know what he could do if she pushed him too hard and, on the other hand, she doesn’t want her suspects to accidentaly hurt one of the few existing elven children. Not as important as the last Rider, sure, but still quite important for her. And, anyway, she still tried to contain, inquire and stop him, gently because she sees the dangers inherent in treating with an amoral child with unknown magic abilities.
Lastly, taking in consideration the Elders Council was portraied as a bunch of opportunists (exept maybe Jormundur) in the original, they were offended with the mere presence of Lomy during the session right up until he agreed with them, when they turned around, using him as an ulterior motive to get their way (“The elves approve this, so obviously it is the right course, Eragon, see?”). The point was, beside asking and ordering him to go away, what could have they done? If they forced him out, he would have just popped back in, that without taking in consideration the political implications of assaulting an elf right in front of the elven ambassador. Arya or Eragon could have been possibly the only two able to force him out and keep him out, but Arya didn’t want to act rashly against him before being sure of what he’s capable of and Eragon, even if he wanted to, would have still feel uneasy employing brute force over an elven child right in front of his aspiring elven love-interest.
OrganicLead on 10 October 2013, 15:18 said:
It was the Council themselves that thew me off, mostly because of their previous paranoia. It’s been a long time since I’ve read the books, but I remember they were pretty paranoid about who they’d trust. Even Eragon, our glorious and pure last dragon rider, had to have his mind scanned before they even thought about letting him in the same room as their leader.
Sìlfae on 10 October 2013, 15:33 said:
At this point the Council has really no mages avaiable (the Twins are already gone); for what I remember there’s still the Du Vrang Gata, but in the books it is pointed out that, at least until Eragon returns to teach them new words at the end of Eldest, they’re all very weak in comparison to even the Twins; taking in consideration the elven mind is notoriously alien and dangerous to access to humans, unless they’re very skilled magicians, the only ones who could have considered themselves safe to scan Lomy would have been again Arya and Eragon. And Arya is in fact pondering about reading Lomy’s mind before the reunion, she’s just afraid of his possible collateral reaction or the damage she could accidentally make to his mind (if he really were an elven child).
The Elders wanted Eragon to swear allegiance to them and put Nasuada as a patsy (it is written quite openly in the original work); since Lomy agrees with them in the end, they just roll with it: doesn’t matter if he’s a child and he’s offensive, as long as they get what they want…
Epke on 10 October 2013, 16:42 said:
Your character isn’t conforming to the (new) reality. In Umlautegaesia, magic is speaking/forming spells in the Ancient Language: the words give the magic(al energy) form and does something. That’s what magic is here. Does Lomy draw his magic across dimensions from his homeworld? Does it come from something within him? How does he use a different magic system in a world with one already established? This hasn’t been discussed, mentioned or even asked by anyone (or given an answer, anyway) in the story, so Lomy’s character comes across as changing reality to suit him.
Hero, villain, anti-hero, Mr Mittens groomer, doesn’t matter. The story of Eragon is about, well, Eragon. He’s the focus. With this, Lomy is: he’s the new main character that influences/changes the story. On the topic of NPCs (Eragon never felt like an authorial insert to me, rather a glorified character with a size complex), and in connection with the previous sentence: Rhonin from the World of Warcraft universe.
Perhaps it is just me, but I find this to be more serious than parody, or to be too subtle (or missing completely) with the satirical elements. Crossovers aren’t really parodies by default either.
It’d be better, and more obvious, if instead of Lomy insulting everyone with a few grains of nonsense-pointing, he’d make the characters aware of it. You could probably have skipped the entire council meeting with him simply asking “Humans, why do you value Elves so much?” and go from there.
First time I’ve seen that, then again, I’m not very into D&D.
You read Eragon, right? Does it sound very in-character for either Eragon or Arya to remain quiet in this situation? Or not do anything about Lomy? The aforementioned two, and especially Eragon, are very self-entitled and likes to talk. A lot. And Eragon’s kind of a sociopath, so I doubt he’d sit there and take it.
Finally, Lomy’s hair and eye colour hasn’t, as far as I’m aware, been noted amongst the elves, so that ought to tip the characters off that he’s, you know, not an elven child.
Sìlfae on 10 October 2013, 17:27 said:
The issue is being addressed, starting from the previous chapter, when he first appeared, and it will be discussed to a certain length in the future; Lomy somewhat already gave an answer, both Eragon and Arya are trying to pull out more from him, but he’s not collaborative and personally doesn’t care.
I would say it is a little too early to say this; I’d wait at least until Chapter 10-11 to speak more of it, else it would give away too much.
Really? I thought I even made it too blatant, with all being so outrageously over-the-top… Weird…
I don’t know, I think it wouldn’t have been particularly funny having to just bring up the problem as a topic of conversation; Lomy doesn’t care why the humans value elves, he knows that it just is (in D&D as well as in Eragonland), so, being put in the position of playing an elf, he naturally assumes everyone else will listen to him (and it actually is not so). Having the offensive child act so in a room full of characters who would have normally listened to an elf, is what sets up the scene.
The “Can’t argue with elves” trope is very common in fantasy literature, it is present in Tolkien too, there is no need to have a deep knowledge of D&D to understand most of Lomy’s jokes and references since they refer to the D&D setting more than the D&D mechanics and the D&D setting is something of a general mix up of recurrent fantasy lore.
Take in consideration this is the beginning of Eldest, Eragon has yet to take the voyage which will lead him to true sociopathy, he still has to reach the peak of his power and ego; right now he’s more on his whining fase (Oh, the back, oh, I’m crippled, oh, I’ll never be a real Rider, blah blah blah…). While he still remains quite from gentle, he’s in a more fragile situation right now. Secondly, again, Lomy is not physically ostile, he’s only rude, and Eragon, even at the worst of his sociopathy, still remains self-righteous: he’s not going to attack/kill an elven child just because he’s talking ill of him and, more selfishly important, he’s not going to hurt Lomy if there is any chance doing so may hinder his possibilities at scoring with Arya. Thirdly, he’s not exactly sitting there and taking it either.
Eragon doesn’t know much about elves or elven children (and that issue is addressed at their first encounter), as for Arya, she knows elves do frequently reshape their appearance to better please their aesthetic sense of beauty (remember the furries and the dragonscaled and the transparent ones?) and Lomy has shown from the start quite the attitude with magic, thus it’s really nothing of note to her: she just naturally assumed he reshaped his skin, eyes and hair. It would not even be much of a trasformation, by Ellesméra’s standards…
Epke on 10 October 2013, 19:02 said:
Really? So he hasn’t influenced people and events already? Huh.
Guess the fanfic vibe is too strong.
You should read some Pratchett then.
Extremely rare in Tolkien and then it’s on an individual level, not a race-wide one.
As for the reshape business: you’re telling us how Arya thinks outside of the story. As we read the story, we don’t know this. At this point in the story, no character knows this: it isn’t until Eldest it is discussed.
The rest, imo, stands.
Sìlfae on 11 October 2013, 03:16 said:
Well, I didn’t say he wasn’t going to influence the story, I said he’s not going to be a major influence or certainly not the main focus of it. In the end right now the only major influence he had was assisting the Elders Council in becoming an actual plot-relevant problem, rather than appearing and disappearing in a blink, while sowing a little dissent between Eragon and Arya.
I’m curious, what points seem to make it serious for you in particular? I know there are dark hints, but they’re still seen in a humorous light (like Ajihad death).
Well, Tolkien plays it straight and in the more pleasing possible variety, but still, you wouldn’t argue in Middle-Earth elves are just so beautiful and smart and wise and morally superior to.. everybody else. Sure, they can make mistakes along the way, they can have their black sheep, but on the whole, compared to, say, humans?
Yes, but it is something of a minor priority for her right now, compared to the magic anomaly, and, being a parody, it would require a certain knowledge of the original work to enjoy the whole situation by itself. I guess Eragon could have asked about it to her, but now that Lomy showed himself to be an annoyance he doesn’t really care that much about a mere particular, especially when there are more pressing matter at hand (his pain, the succession, the departure for Ellesméra and so on); I guess I could have made the point more explicit, but it seemed more of an infodump to me. Arya knows it, so she has no reason to ask Lomy, unless doubts arise, and she has more important things to think about him; Eragon doesn’t, but his lack of knowledge on the matter is already underlined in the first chapter. Since Arya, an elf, identified Lomy as such, he has no reason for now to think otherwise, since he’s particularly trustful of Arya.
It’s like the fact Eragon’s pain is barely nominated: I assume the reader knows it comes from Durza’s scar and it’s quite relevant to Eragon, but I don’t dwell on it because the original book already does. Even if I made Eragon ask a question to Arya (after receving no answer from Lomy), it wouldn’t have been different from the one he has in the original with Oromis, it seemed repetitive filler, distracting from the more important points.
Please, if you have other doubts or critics, feel free to point out.
Epke on 11 October 2013, 06:01 said:
Everything, really. Lomy’s humour is forced and the tone of the work is very “This is serious”.
Uhm, yes, yes you would. The peoples argue with each other all the time. I guess Elu Thingol was a bit of a trope, but he’s the only one I can think about. Got any examples?
Aren’t any humans in Middle-Earth. There’s Men, though.
Once again, you’re telling us this outside of the story.
Sìlfae on 11 October 2013, 06:12 said:
Really? Sorry, it’s still not clear, in what do you see the seriousness? (I’m not sarcastic, I’m really asking).
As I said, it’s not blatant, they provide exceptions and subvertions, it’s more of a general vibe.
Well, since it’s an explanation about why it is not inside the story, it obviously has to be outside. It is a parody, thus it does require knowledge of the original work, that’s a given.
Epke on 11 October 2013, 16:17 said:
That Lomy is taken seriously and the story gets, shall we say, directed by him? Despite him being a complete plonker? Maybe it’s partially that and the writing style. As I’ve said repeatedly, it’s very fanfiction-y in style (and I mean bad, self-insert fanfiction).
Except it’s not. Elves aren’t listened to because they’re beautiful: in fact, their beauty plays no part in dealing with them (except perhaps by Men) and are only considered wiser because they’ve had the time to accumulate said wisdom. Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes. Morally superior? Uh, yeah. Because they more or less don’t have a choice: being good is ingrained into them (extreme cases may vary). Then again, Middle Earth is a very black and white morality world, where you’re either good or evil. It’s mostly just Men who are given the choice of which one they want to be.
I hadn’t seen Scream by the time I saw Scary Movie, yet I laughed my ass off. You’re explaining how your characters think outside of the story, but your explanations don’t add up: you don’t dwell on details that should be there, because you assume the reader thinks like you do. You spend more time on Lomy’s “snappy” dialogue than you do fleshing out the characters. As of now, it’s Lomy the Amazing Ventriloquist and his Sock-puppets: Arya, Eragon and the Varden.
Sìlfae on 12 October 2013, 03:16 said:
Many of the characters are either baffled or offended; for the rest, it still early.
Well, that’s not what I’m saying, the fact they are beautiful just adds to it. As you said yourself, they are morally engineered to be good and better in so many ways… Anyway, as said before, it’s not about Tolkien, it is a very common trope.
There have been passages from the point of view of the other characters; as I said I cannot dwell on it much right now because the plot is still in the original trails; as it gets derailed the focus shifts back to the protagonists. Anyway, in the first chapter I described to a length the thought processes of Eragon and Arya before and after the first encounter.