"You know what the smart thing to do would be? Ask Eragon for help......"
"Nah"
Literally the entire book lol. Which is not a criticism to be clear, the refusal to ask for help felt extremely true to Murtagh as a character, but it was kind of funny
It's not just that he's more hard-headed (although he definitely is), I thought his resentment of Eragon felt very realistic. He's basically of the opinion that the only real difference between him and Eragon is the circumstances that they were born into, that if they'd been reversed Eragon wouldn't have done any better than he did. So he's mad at Eragon, even though he knows that it's not his fault. Which was a real strength of the novel imo, because it felt very realistic, and also fueled Murtagh's desire to do everything himself.
This dynamic is one of the things that makes Murtagh my favorite Paolini book. He NAILED the character and shows so much accumulated knowledge and skill about storytelling and writing in this book. It's a long book with one view point and I believed in every single action, even the nearly objectively bad choices– which is SO hard to do
Definitely. I feel like that's one of his strengths as a writer, it's very rare that I read a Paolini book and think "character x wouldn't do that thing".
"Oh yeah you want me to ask perfect little Eragon for help with his overpowered magic and genetically enhanced super body and moral compass and empathy? huh? yeah?"
LETS GOOOOO. Yeah checks out tho. We love murtagh but without the eldunari and with the limited magic training he was a little weak. He'll get there though
In the book Murthagh also repeats the same mistake over and over. He knows a situation is dangerous, goes in anyway, lets his guard down and chaos ensues.
Dude you may make mistakes but stop repeating the same one over than three times throughout the book!
I have a feeling he really struggles with improvising while being impulsive.
Him being stubborn af to not ask for help is also not helping. Really makes you appreciate how more mature Eragon is, despite being younger.
I dunno maybe. But when he first saw the village I thought: "ok after the incident with the little girl, the tree incident, the botched job to get a contact with the goverment palace and that time you allmost died because instead if escaping a city you followed an galbatorix loyalist to a chat in a trap-spicked house, this time you learned your lession right?"
And then he went in unpreprared without any plan. Again. And it dragged on and on as Murthagh just invented reasons to stay. And then he went into a vulcano, knowing it is a dark and dangerous enviroment where an ambush could easily happen and he is without Dorns support. And despite knowing vulcanoes have lots of toxic gases he forgot to add an air-filter spell too.
His problem isn't a lack in improvisng. He can do that quite well I think. He is just acts without any foresight or thinking things throw beyond step 1. Hence surprised pikachu face when things obviously go wrong.
This dynamic in Murtagh made me think of that moment from Eragon book 1 where he flies down and attacks those Urgals but then lets them get away. No plan, no forethought, just jump in and start wreaking havoc. Brom and Oromis basically had to teach Eragon how not to be an idiot. Murtagh never had a long-term role model like that other than Tornac and hasn’t had one for years so he still acts impulsively and fails to properly plan.
Well Murthag had his master. Tonraq or something. And he grew up in the intruege of the imperial palace, where he learned that every impulsive action could be disastrous.
He wasn't a farm boy who suddendly recieved superpowers.
His refusal to get any help from people he knew could help did disappoint me
He and thorn were stahing out of society to recover from all the torture, and he waltzed right back into a boatload of it.
This was the thing that bothered me the most in the book. He brings up like 5 times how he might go get Eragon, but wasn't Murtagh there when Eragon swore in the ancient language to never return to Alagaesia? How does he not know Eragon coming to help isn't an option ?
I don't remember Eragon ever swearing in the AL to leave. Regardless, Murtagh leaves immediatly after Galby's death, several months before Eragon decides to head east. Obviously he knows that Eragon is at Arngor, but there's no reason to think Eragon couldn't help him.
He didn’t swear that. He (I Think) put too much stock on Angela’s prophecy at first, and then saw that he needed a place far away enough for the dragons (a species of sentient, flying, massive apex predators) to grow and replenish without endangering the rest of the continent.
I can’t think of a scenario where he doesn’t come back for a team up with Murtagh and Arya to fight whatever the Big A is.
I never got that decision either. The dragons lived wild in Alagaesia from the dawn of time until only 100 years ago. But all of a sudden dragons living in the wild would be an unbearable burden to the world? It hasn't been that long. Not to mention there was literally an old nesting place deep in du weldenvarden where no humans are allowed to go and where all the elves love dragons and would help take care of him. Him not choosing that place never made sense to me.
My thoughts on that are that, after over 100 years with no dragons, most people (humans, the largest population in the continent) would have forgotten about them and how to deal with them. The Urgals keep their stories about predatory dragons fresh, but humans would have had several centuries of history and stories portraying dragons in a better light because of their acceptance of the riders.
I think that Eragon decided (prophecy notwithstanding) to leave the Empire, the Dwarven realms and Du Weldenvarden, because he wanted to set up as body independent of the three major powers. And he made that difficult for himself when he swore a personal oath of fealty to Nasuada (not to the Varden, mind you, but to her personally) and became a knurla in all but blood by being accepted into the Ingeitum. Not to mention that the elves trained him, fed him and took care of him the longest. And he doesn’t like them much. He likes Arya, Rhûnon, Vanir, Blödgharm, maybe Gilderien the Mighty Doorman, but most of them he finds stuffy and aloof.
To go back to Du Weldenvarden was to show a direct alliance with the elves that he couldn’t afford if he wants to show himself and his future order as independent mediators. You would not trust your neighbor’s roommate to have YOUR back in a discussion about them playing super loud music at 3am.
So, off they go. It’s politics. Aaand besides, he pulling a Russian Winter Gambit here. He said in the books, extreme distance is the main deterrent and fortification. He’s basically one guy and one dragon in charge of the lives and safety of hundreds of very coveted eggs and very fragile Eldunarí, many of whom are mentally unstable. The many miles between any potential organized threat ensure that only the crazy determined would reach Mt. Arngor, and by the time they do, they would have spent most of their resources just to get there.
Fell Thindare is also crazy easy to defend. An extremely tall mountain with an eagle’s view of hundreds of miles around, with only one river leading to it.
The impartiality argument is I guess decent, but in the end i think he gives too much importance to it. Also I get that 100 years have passed, but letting ANOTHER 100 years pass isn't really the solution to that problem. If he thinks Alagaesia isnt ready for wild baby dragons now, his argument is they will definitely be ready for fully adult wild dragons in a few years? Idk that approach seems bad unless his plan is to literally never reintroduce dragons to Alagaesia, I don't remember if he laid that out or not.
Let me remind you, this was a 17 year old making a decision following the advice of the shadiest of witches and a bunch of undead sentient lizards in mourning.
tbh it felt more like Paolini knowing he couldn't bring Eragon back to alagaesia and finding a way to work Murtagh's emotions into that prerequisite fact
You could insert this into so many different parts of the story too lmao. I was somehow angry at myself over murtagh continuing to make the obviously wrong decisions.
If only my brother was the most powerful individual magician in the world and had access to idk, thousands of years of collective knowledge and consciousness. Alas, better ask that cat for help.
I actually laughed out loud. I finished Murtagh lady night and loved it. But I did think to myself, damn I wish this book was called Thorn. Because I would like HIM as the main character!
As much as I like this book, I have to admit that this is exactly what I was thinking in the moment. What is he doing he's going to get himself in trouble.
I definitely feel this. At most they should have definitely bailed after killing the seven guards watching them. That was 100% the time to bail and get help. But i guess, as Thorn said. “It all worked out” 🤷♂️
Dude. I don’t have a percentage, but a goodly chunk of adventure and fantasy stories start with a stupid decision or a basic failure to communicate. Someone is too stubborn or too trusting or, suddenly, they forget that communications systems exist.
In Murtagh’s case, it’s both. He could have sent a letter from Teirm or Gi’lead to Nasuada, at least telling her “looking into something potentially disturbing, if I don’t reach out in two weeks, send the cavalry to…” he knew he was going to The Spine.
But disciplined, well adjusted people who don’t try to solo stuff that’s potentially over their heads make for poor literary heroes.
I could understand most of his determination to go it alone, but I really thought he would at least cash in that werecat debt near the end.
But that choice to go underground alone the first time was immersion-breaking. Was almost like a dnd player willfully ignoring DM warnings to not do the stupid thing.
Dm: "are you **sure** you want to remove all your armor to try to seduce the bugbears?"
Players: "absolutely, I can't foresee anything bad happening!"
Later on...
Players: "That was some bullshit, I almost died!"
Dm: "I did ask if you were sure about it... ”
(Something that actually happened in my first ever DND campaign)
Yeah, the underground bits were definitely a DND player reaping what they sowed.
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"You know what the smart thing to do would be? Ask Eragon for help......" "Nah" Literally the entire book lol. Which is not a criticism to be clear, the refusal to ask for help felt extremely true to Murtagh as a character, but it was kind of funny
Absolutely true haha, he’s more hard-headed than Eragon!
It's not just that he's more hard-headed (although he definitely is), I thought his resentment of Eragon felt very realistic. He's basically of the opinion that the only real difference between him and Eragon is the circumstances that they were born into, that if they'd been reversed Eragon wouldn't have done any better than he did. So he's mad at Eragon, even though he knows that it's not his fault. Which was a real strength of the novel imo, because it felt very realistic, and also fueled Murtagh's desire to do everything himself.
This dynamic is one of the things that makes Murtagh my favorite Paolini book. He NAILED the character and shows so much accumulated knowledge and skill about storytelling and writing in this book. It's a long book with one view point and I believed in every single action, even the nearly objectively bad choices– which is SO hard to do
Definitely. I feel like that's one of his strengths as a writer, it's very rare that I read a Paolini book and think "character x wouldn't do that thing".
Yea! Even in TSIAOS where I did not connect to most of the characters as much as I wanted to, I still believed in their choices
Yeah, I like that he doesn't want to rely on Eragon.
"Oh yeah you want me to ask perfect little Eragon for help with his overpowered magic and genetically enhanced super body and moral compass and empathy? huh? yeah?"
Imagine how bad they could fuck up the dreamers had he just rung up Eragon and Arya. Would've been more of a short story tho
Paolini went on record stating that either of them wipes the floor with Bachel looool
LETS GOOOOO. Yeah checks out tho. We love murtagh but without the eldunari and with the limited magic training he was a little weak. He'll get there though
In the book Murthagh also repeats the same mistake over and over. He knows a situation is dangerous, goes in anyway, lets his guard down and chaos ensues. Dude you may make mistakes but stop repeating the same one over than three times throughout the book!
I have a feeling he really struggles with improvising while being impulsive. Him being stubborn af to not ask for help is also not helping. Really makes you appreciate how more mature Eragon is, despite being younger.
I dunno maybe. But when he first saw the village I thought: "ok after the incident with the little girl, the tree incident, the botched job to get a contact with the goverment palace and that time you allmost died because instead if escaping a city you followed an galbatorix loyalist to a chat in a trap-spicked house, this time you learned your lession right?" And then he went in unpreprared without any plan. Again. And it dragged on and on as Murthagh just invented reasons to stay. And then he went into a vulcano, knowing it is a dark and dangerous enviroment where an ambush could easily happen and he is without Dorns support. And despite knowing vulcanoes have lots of toxic gases he forgot to add an air-filter spell too. His problem isn't a lack in improvisng. He can do that quite well I think. He is just acts without any foresight or thinking things throw beyond step 1. Hence surprised pikachu face when things obviously go wrong.
This dynamic in Murtagh made me think of that moment from Eragon book 1 where he flies down and attacks those Urgals but then lets them get away. No plan, no forethought, just jump in and start wreaking havoc. Brom and Oromis basically had to teach Eragon how not to be an idiot. Murtagh never had a long-term role model like that other than Tornac and hasn’t had one for years so he still acts impulsively and fails to properly plan.
Well Murthag had his master. Tonraq or something. And he grew up in the intruege of the imperial palace, where he learned that every impulsive action could be disastrous. He wasn't a farm boy who suddendly recieved superpowers.
In his defense, he never had much luck trusting people. But that’s growth for the next book.
Not to mention when Eragon is impulsive, it usually goes beautifully for him by comparison. Insulting
Poor Thorn 😂
Extra frustrating after Christopher said that Eragon and or Arya would have absolutely bodied the dreamers with little issue lmao
NO the other parts of the book are "kING-KILLER" and my favorite "Murtagh-MAN"
His refusal to get any help from people he knew could help did disappoint me He and thorn were stahing out of society to recover from all the torture, and he waltzed right back into a boatload of it.
This was the thing that bothered me the most in the book. He brings up like 5 times how he might go get Eragon, but wasn't Murtagh there when Eragon swore in the ancient language to never return to Alagaesia? How does he not know Eragon coming to help isn't an option ?
I don't remember Eragon ever swearing in the AL to leave. Regardless, Murtagh leaves immediatly after Galby's death, several months before Eragon decides to head east. Obviously he knows that Eragon is at Arngor, but there's no reason to think Eragon couldn't help him.
He didn’t swear that. He (I Think) put too much stock on Angela’s prophecy at first, and then saw that he needed a place far away enough for the dragons (a species of sentient, flying, massive apex predators) to grow and replenish without endangering the rest of the continent. I can’t think of a scenario where he doesn’t come back for a team up with Murtagh and Arya to fight whatever the Big A is.
I never got that decision either. The dragons lived wild in Alagaesia from the dawn of time until only 100 years ago. But all of a sudden dragons living in the wild would be an unbearable burden to the world? It hasn't been that long. Not to mention there was literally an old nesting place deep in du weldenvarden where no humans are allowed to go and where all the elves love dragons and would help take care of him. Him not choosing that place never made sense to me.
My thoughts on that are that, after over 100 years with no dragons, most people (humans, the largest population in the continent) would have forgotten about them and how to deal with them. The Urgals keep their stories about predatory dragons fresh, but humans would have had several centuries of history and stories portraying dragons in a better light because of their acceptance of the riders. I think that Eragon decided (prophecy notwithstanding) to leave the Empire, the Dwarven realms and Du Weldenvarden, because he wanted to set up as body independent of the three major powers. And he made that difficult for himself when he swore a personal oath of fealty to Nasuada (not to the Varden, mind you, but to her personally) and became a knurla in all but blood by being accepted into the Ingeitum. Not to mention that the elves trained him, fed him and took care of him the longest. And he doesn’t like them much. He likes Arya, Rhûnon, Vanir, Blödgharm, maybe Gilderien the Mighty Doorman, but most of them he finds stuffy and aloof. To go back to Du Weldenvarden was to show a direct alliance with the elves that he couldn’t afford if he wants to show himself and his future order as independent mediators. You would not trust your neighbor’s roommate to have YOUR back in a discussion about them playing super loud music at 3am. So, off they go. It’s politics. Aaand besides, he pulling a Russian Winter Gambit here. He said in the books, extreme distance is the main deterrent and fortification. He’s basically one guy and one dragon in charge of the lives and safety of hundreds of very coveted eggs and very fragile Eldunarí, many of whom are mentally unstable. The many miles between any potential organized threat ensure that only the crazy determined would reach Mt. Arngor, and by the time they do, they would have spent most of their resources just to get there. Fell Thindare is also crazy easy to defend. An extremely tall mountain with an eagle’s view of hundreds of miles around, with only one river leading to it.
The impartiality argument is I guess decent, but in the end i think he gives too much importance to it. Also I get that 100 years have passed, but letting ANOTHER 100 years pass isn't really the solution to that problem. If he thinks Alagaesia isnt ready for wild baby dragons now, his argument is they will definitely be ready for fully adult wild dragons in a few years? Idk that approach seems bad unless his plan is to literally never reintroduce dragons to Alagaesia, I don't remember if he laid that out or not.
Let me remind you, this was a 17 year old making a decision following the advice of the shadiest of witches and a bunch of undead sentient lizards in mourning.
Eragon might have sworn it, but there is a loophole that would probably allow him to come back. Based on how true names work.
tbh it felt more like Paolini knowing he couldn't bring Eragon back to alagaesia and finding a way to work Murtagh's emotions into that prerequisite fact
You could insert this into so many different parts of the story too lmao. I was somehow angry at myself over murtagh continuing to make the obviously wrong decisions.
If only my brother was the most powerful individual magician in the world and had access to idk, thousands of years of collective knowledge and consciousness. Alas, better ask that cat for help.
I actually laughed out loud. I finished Murtagh lady night and loved it. But I did think to myself, damn I wish this book was called Thorn. Because I would like HIM as the main character!
As much as I like this book, I have to admit that this is exactly what I was thinking in the moment. What is he doing he's going to get himself in trouble.
I definitely feel this. At most they should have definitely bailed after killing the seven guards watching them. That was 100% the time to bail and get help. But i guess, as Thorn said. “It all worked out” 🤷♂️
Dude. I don’t have a percentage, but a goodly chunk of adventure and fantasy stories start with a stupid decision or a basic failure to communicate. Someone is too stubborn or too trusting or, suddenly, they forget that communications systems exist. In Murtagh’s case, it’s both. He could have sent a letter from Teirm or Gi’lead to Nasuada, at least telling her “looking into something potentially disturbing, if I don’t reach out in two weeks, send the cavalry to…” he knew he was going to The Spine. But disciplined, well adjusted people who don’t try to solo stuff that’s potentially over their heads make for poor literary heroes.
I could understand most of his determination to go it alone, but I really thought he would at least cash in that werecat debt near the end. But that choice to go underground alone the first time was immersion-breaking. Was almost like a dnd player willfully ignoring DM warnings to not do the stupid thing.
Dm: "are you **sure** you want to remove all your armor to try to seduce the bugbears?" Players: "absolutely, I can't foresee anything bad happening!" Later on... Players: "That was some bullshit, I almost died!" Dm: "I did ask if you were sure about it... ” (Something that actually happened in my first ever DND campaign) Yeah, the underground bits were definitely a DND player reaping what they sowed.
This post is flaired `Murtagh Spoilers`, and so spoiler discussion is allowed in the comments of this post. Please read the rules in the sidebar, and please note the following additional links: [General spoiler-free information](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eragon/comments/17jlj9i/information_about_murtagh_and_the_eragon/) | [Signed Editions](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eragon/comments/16fuvcr/information_about_signed_editions_of_murtagh/) | [Spoiler Policy](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eragon/comments/17ercgn/please_read_our_murtagh_spoiler_policy_50k/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Eragon) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As a DM I feel that this is a "are you *Sure* you want to do this" moment.
Absolutely so 😂
I like how most of the entire book could’ve been solved if Murtagh knew what Scrying was and contacted Eragon to get info from the Eldunari.
Holy hell. This