Roran's whipping was COMPLETELY ridiculous! (The Inheritance Cycle - Brisingr)

[Drathnoxis]

*Spoilers for the book Brisingr and the Inheritance Cycle series (Eragon series)* You know, if you care...

So I've been listening to the audio books for the Inheritance Cycle, and while the books are... not great, they are just entertaining enough to make listening to them enjoyable. This is in large part due to the excellent narration by Gerard Doyle. But this last section was bad. Really bad!

So for anybody not in the know, the premise of the series is that and evil, immortal, dragon riding king is ruling Middle Earth Alagaesia and it's up to the newly found dragon rider Eragon to git gud so he can overthrow him. He and his "normal human" cousin, Roran, have allied themselves with a rebel army called the Varden, lead by Queen Nasuada. Currently, Eragon is off fiddling about with dwarves and Roran, having just joined the Varden, is being tested with a couple raiding missions.

On Roran's last mission they were attacking some small town somewhere which had around 500 Imperial troops, outnumbering them by a couple hundred. Roran's captain turned out to be completely incompetent and would have bungled the raid and gotten everybody killed if Roran hadn't disobeyed his orders and ordered his men to not stupidly charge into the greater force of trained magic crossbow wielding soldiers. Instead of doing that, he had his men climb up on the roof and fire an infinite amount of arrows at the soldiers while Roran himself single-handedly killed 193 soldiers with his hammer (I'm not even exaggerating, that's what the book said). This pretty much took care of the entire force and saved the mission from disaster. Almost all of the men under Roran's command survived, while only a handful of the troops from the other commands, including his captain's, made it.

Okay, so now Roran is like the biggest hero ever, having completed a task of such superhuman prowess that it defies all logic presented in the series thus far, how does Queen Nasuada reward him for this feat? 50 lashes in front of a public assembly for insubordination! She only begrudgingly has magicians heal his tattered back because she wants him to go on another mission the very next day! In an instant I've lost any sort of respect for this mad woman that I ever had. She is no better than the Evil King! Roran gets no trial to see if his actions were justified, he get's no reduced sentence for saving around a hundred of his fellow soldiers lives, in fact Nasuada states that if he weren't the cousin of a dragon rider he would be hung! That right there is genius level tactics, kill off your best and brightest soldiers because they had the audacity to not follow idiotic orders that would get everyone killed.

She says that she has to punish Roran or she would appear weak and lose the respect of the Varden. The complete opposite is true, though. I don't know about anybody else, but if I was in that army and I saw Roran getting flogged for saving a hundred lives and snatching victory from the brink of defeat I would lose all faith in the decision making capabilities of the leaders! That their greatest heroes are punished like criminals would completely break my morale. These are supposed to be the good guys here and yet the Queen of the Varden appears to be just as power mad as the Evil King!

Honestly, I'm finding it very hard to gather the will to continue with the books. Is it even worth it when these are the people we're rooting for?

Has anybody else read the Inheritance cycle? What did you think of this section? What did you think of the series in general?

 

[HybridChangeling]

Its not about the good versus evil simplicity, this is indeed about respect. If you allow one guy to go on his own path in a crisis situation, suddenly every dude in the Varden has his own lifesaving way to fix a situation, and then boom chaos among the ranks. The Varden is on the verge of destruction, and any sliver of order left has to be kept to survive.

To answer your question, yes it is worth it to finish the books, don't let a single character with a flaw destroy an entire book for you. That's like being angry at Hammond for making Nedry fix his badly made code in Jurassic Park and never continuing it.

Now, stepping out of the realm of the book world, this was more of a error on the authors part. Making Roran's choice the only best choice ever and not giving it any complexity (Example being making the situation a lose lose but Roran picking a risky move that just ends up being the lucky one), makes the Queen's choice nonsensical unless you understand leading a barely functional group.

 

[Veylon]

Its not about the good versus evil simplicity, this is indeed about respect. If you allow one guy to go on his own path in a crisis situation, suddenly every dude in the Varden has his own lifesaving way to fix a situation, and then boom chaos among the ranks. The Varden is on the verge of destruction, and any sliver of order left has to be kept to survive.

On the other end of things, if you punish everyone who takes action in a crisis, they'll sit around sucking their thumbs any time there isn't an officer to tell them what to do. One temporary break in the chain of command - as often happens in battle - and everything grinds to a halt. If you've ever looked into Italy's army during either of the World Wars, you can see how much of a downside rigidity brings.

People who expect to have to choose between being killed in battle or being killed by their own leaders often choose a third option: desertion. I bet Galby's officers would be happy to spare the life of a former traitor who saw the light and decided to spill the beans.

And this is a setting where people can have irresistible instructions written into their minds. Suppose one of Galby's agents brainwashed one of the higher ups to give some wrong orders? If everything is supposed to unfold like clockwork with no push-back from underneath, a single bad command (or, for that matter, a mistake) by a single individual can hopelessly doom an entire army.

This is why you typically hold a court martial to judge the situation afterwards. If they made a good call, you let them off the hook or even reward them. If not, you hang them. They hand out the top tier medals for showing initiative, not just following orders.

On a lighter note, there was mention made of people dying from fifty lashes. I would've liked to see Nasuada explain that to Eragon!

 

[Drathnoxis]

Its not about the good versus evil simplicity, this is indeed about respect. If you allow one guy to go on his own path in a crisis situation, suddenly every dude in the Varden has his own lifesaving way to fix a situation, and then boom chaos among the ranks. The Varden is on the verge of destruction, and any sliver of order left has to be kept to survive.

I can understand that she needs to maintain order, but it's just ridiculous to go handing out incredibly severe punishment regardless of circumstance or context. I mean, 50 lashes is an awful lot, people have died from a lot less. If you absolutely have to punish someone in this situation you really should give them a reduced sentence in light of the circumstances. You really shouldn't go mutilating your best man because his only options were to follow orders and get everyone killed or to... actually didn't he pretty much still follow orders? I mean, it's not like he fled the field or anything, he was pretty much told to kill those soldiers and that's what he did, just in a slightly different way than the captain stated before he rode off to get his own men killed.

The worst part is that Captain Edric was still demoted and Roran was still promoted as a result. Like what kind of mixed message is that? I can't help but feel that the rest of the (volunteer) army is going to look at the chain of events here, conclude how unjust it's all been, and be very angry with Nasuada.

To answer your question, yes it is worth it to finish the books, don't let a single character with a flaw destroy an entire book for you. That's like being angry at Hammond for making Nedry fix his badly made code in Jurassic Park and never continuing it.

Now, stepping out of the realm of the book world, this was more of a error on the authors part. Making Roran's choice the only best choice ever and not giving it any complexity (Example being making the situation a lose lose but Roran picking a risky move that just ends up being the lucky one), makes the Queen's choice nonsensical unless you understand leading a barely functional group.

I think Roran on the whole is probably the worst written character in the book. He's just so ludicrously skilled for absolutely no reason, while also being completely right about everything. You can't put him in any sort of morally grey situation because he's just going to do the best option, and take any repercussions with dignity and valor. That and Edric's plan was pretty stupid. Go charge over there into a vastly larger force with magic crossbows and pray you survive. Roran's plan was much more sensible, just stand over here and take on the entire force single handedly, but pray for your families and land! Actually wait, I'm confused, why did that plan work again?

And yeah, I guess I'll continue with the series. After a bit of a break.

 

[Fox12]

Honestly, I'm finding it very hard to gather the will to continue with the books. Is it even worth it when these are the people we're rooting for?

Oh yes, the Eragon books. Your first mistake was starting the series. Nothing about Roran's character makes any sense. He has to be perfect at everything, and then get treated like crap afterward. Because he's perfect. Don't worry, it gets worse. Much worse. Not just with Roran, though. The whole story falls apart at the end. I would honestly recommend stopping now. The last book is like a perfect guide for how not to write a fantasy novel. If you're mad now, wait until later in the series. Take my advice, and leave it alone.

I would recommend Game of Thrones and Dune, if you haven't already read them. Neil Gaiman's stuff is always worth a listen, as are Stephen King's better novels. Discworld and His Dark Materials are excellent for long car rides.

I would also recommend the Berserk manga, and a webcomic series called Necropolis. Great fantasy stories.

Its not about the good versus evil simplicity, this is indeed about respect. If you allow one guy to go on his own path in a crisis situation, suddenly every dude in the Varden has his own lifesaving way to fix a situation, and then boom chaos among the ranks. The Varden is on the verge of destruction, and any sliver of order left has to be kept to survive.

Not really. This would be awful for morale. I've never heard of a soldier being punished for winning a battle and saving his men. I mean, I suppose it's happened at some point in human history, but this has never been the norm in any army, in any time period. On the contrary, militaries love soldiers who can think for themselves and perform under crisis situations. Things go horribly wrong during missions all the time, and when that happens you need a commander that can create an entirely new plan on the fly. Practicality is more important then respect. That's always been the case, and leaders are typically quite quick to acknowledge this. If the princess lady can't see the value of self sufficient leaders on the battlefield, then she's not much of a commander.

 

[Scarim Coral]

That's the thing, if he disobey order to do his own thing, what stopping other lower ranking soldiers from doing the same thing? Sure it work out great for Roran but making changes in the battlefield is a matter of life and death or others may not be so lucky for being reckless.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

...while Roran himself single-handedly killed 193 soldiers with his hammer (I'm not even exaggerating, that's what the book said).

Aaaaaand there goes any possibility I might have ever been persuaded to read the series hurling out the window, landing on a pile of rusty used syringes, and then exploding. Shit like this is precisely the reason I have difficulty getting into "lighter" fantasy series (as in, lighter than Witcher/Game of Thrones calibre darkness). All the main characters become basically Superman, and then there's zero feeling of tension or danger present anymore.

OT: eeh, I haven't read the books, but what seems to be here is a much stupider fantasy variant on the "police chief gets angry at Dirty Harry" cliche. Though considering the character here didn't blow up half of San Francisco while getting results, the choice his superior made seems even dumber.

 

[default]

I haven't touched the books for years now but it surprises me that they're considered with such contempt. They were far from amazing, but they had some nice ideas and were good at painting a picture of the world, as generic as it was. Looking back on them now it was all very power-creep style high fantasy, which I don't really like these days.

Actually, one thing that really bothered me was an unresolved bit of intrigue. When Eragon convinces that elven tree to give up the space-ore for his new sword in return for something, Eragon feels a wierd twinge in his stomach and the tree stays silent about what it took as payment. It's never brought up again. What, did it take his appendix?

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Someone else actually read The Inheritance Cycle books?!

Yeah, I remember that. TBH, at that point in the series, everything went down the YA route.

Characters become unlikable for the sake of being unlikable, major power creep, needless grim-darkyness, etc. I hated Roran especially.

I was a lot younger at the time, so I just accepted it. Looking back, meh, I think it's dumb, but as it changed literally nothing (Roran didnt seem to mind) I guess its inconsequential.

Of the series in general, I enjoyed it. Like a LotR for kids. Dragons are always cool, setting your sword on fire is cool, and badass elves are cool. There are obvious signs of it being essentially LotR fanfiction. Like I remember how Eragon went from pwning everyone to getting his ass served to him by Arya (is that her name?) in the course of a book. If all the elves are so badass, how the fuck have they not won the war? Reminded me of anime.

 

[HybridChangeling]

That's the thing, if he disobey order to do his own thing, what stopping other lower ranking soldiers from doing the same thing? Sure it work out great for Roran but making changes in the battlefield is a matter of life and death or others may not be so lucky for being reckless.

Pretty much my point. Plus looking at the Varden as an elite soldier force or whatever is an error, they barely can win with an unstoppable god dragon team as it is.

Also, I would imagine the Queen would be in some deep dragon excrement if she accidentally killed his brother.

 

[Xeorm]

It makes sense in context. First: No trial? He was sentenced by the Queen herself. Welcome to Monarchy. He should probably be glad he didn't get a trial, as normally judges aren't allowed to bend the rules as much as she did.

Second: yes, that's how organizations work. The guy above you is rated as being in charge, because the people above him believe that he should be in charge, and so on and so forth. By disobeying the guy in charge, Roran effectively disobeys the person who put that guy in charge. This makes him look like a fool, and it all follows up.

Some organizations are better than others about handling those types of problems where an idiot somehow gets in charge, but don't expect that to be the norm.

You can probably see why groups try to be very careful about training their managers properly, especially if they manage troops. But, not every organization has that leeway at times to train their managers or even control who manages. I forget by now about the organizational specifics in The Inheritance Cycle, but given that it is set in medieval times, incompetent people put in charge was a likely consequence of having nobility. The nobility expect good positions regardless of merit, and expect respect given to their position. Why else would they be nobility if they weren't naturally better than the commonfolk?