! I made an interesting realization just now in the shower! On a couple of occasions, Eragon and Nasuada suggest that Murtagh should act in the way Tornac would have as a way to change for the better and, ultimately, change his true name to free himself from Galbatorix and fight for them instead. Eragon insinuates this without directly mentioning Tornac: “Look at someone whom you admire but who has chosen paths other than your own through life and model your actions upon his.” But in the context of Murtagh’s backstory, this advice strongly evokes Tornac. And Nasuada outright names him: “Ask yourself: what would Tornac have wanted you to do?”
But that’s a very curious demand for them to make because Murtagh is already emulating Tornac. Consider what we know about him. Tornac served Galbatorix, he would have had to for the king to entrust him with Murtagh’s care. They lived in Uru'baen together as Murtagh grew up with Tornac raising him and he would have had to be in Galbatorix’s service for all that time. Yet, he had no love for the king given that, when Murtagh wanted to abandon the Empire and flee, he was immediately ready to join him and help him leave that very same night. So he served the Empire for many years even though he had no true desire to be support them or the king, in order to provide the care and protection that Murtagh needed, until Murtagh was ready to make his own choice and take his own risk and Tornac turned his back on the king for him without hesitation.
That’s exactly what Murtagh is doing. By yielding to Galbatorix and complying with his commands, Murtagh is doing the same thing for Thorn. He’s bowed to this broad, great evil so he can look after the needs of an individual when no one else is willing nor able to. He does what he does to prevent Thorn from being tortured, to keep him from being broken, helpless against the king were Murtagh to abandon him. So he doesn’t, the same way Tornac never abandoned him. And in the end, they rebel in a very similar way too. When Thorn is ready to carve his own path and fight for the right to claim his own life for the first time, and Murtagh wants to reclaim the life he desired but thought lost, they stand by each other and break free from Galbatorix.
For him to act the way that Tornac would requires that period of reluctant subservience so he can save the one he loves most. They ask Murtagh to follow Tornac’s example, ignorant to the fact that the actions they so disapprove of are doing exactly that. And I wonder if this is a root of Murtagh’s defining anger, an anger at Eragon and Nasuada’s implication that the compromises that saved his own life and provided him much needed love and support through his childhood- the compromises that saved Thorn, the partner of his heart, when no one else (certainly no one from the Varden) would have helped him- were wrong. That they were immoral, they were not worth while, they were not enough, they fell short, they were wrong. Because such an implication is really a dismissal of Murtagh and Thorn’s wellbeing- arguably of their lives.
Spitting FACTS as ALWAYS!!!!
Especially with that last line- I am refraining from talking about Nasuada at the moment until I have reread Inheritance, but with Eragon at the very least, their lives are TOTALLY disregarded in lieu of the greater good which like. Do I really expect Eragon or anyone else to really help them out? No, not really. They are, in the most physical literal sense, on opposite sides of this war. But Eragon adopts this weird existentialist morality that he tries to impose on Murtagh, telling him that he needs to take responsibility for freeing himself by fundamentally changing who he is at the core of his being at the drop of a hat, indirectly but HEAVILY implies that his continued enslavement is his own fault by not being able to do that, and then L I T E R A L L Y telling Murtagh and Thorn to kill themselves if they want to like “”“prove they’re still good”“” or whatever the fuck because it’s the ~✨only way✨~. It really just feels like Eragon wanted an excuse to feel justified in his emotions in hating/feeling betrayed by Murtagh, and when it’s pretty glaringly obvious that, in spite of the unfortunate circumstances of them having to fight each other, Murtagh is still doing the literal best he can, he just has to invent some reason- ANY reason- to justify his feelings so he doesn’t have to sit around and examine them any further!!! Murtagh’s whole fucking existence has been defined by people just, like, systematically refusing to see his humanity and failing to lend him any amount of grace, or support, or compassion, and blaming him for not being perfect when everyone and every power in the world seems to want to crush him under their heels, and the ONLY two people who never failed him like this are Tornac, who died (not his fault obviously), and Thorn, who… Well, means the absolute world to him, but it sounds like there is a lot of trauma wrapped around just, you know, Thorn hatching for him and their relationship as a whole, which I can only imagine is what we’ll spend a lot of time exploring in Murtagh. Paolini implied as much anyways at the book signing that I went to…
I want you to reblog this if you believe that two people can be very close and physically affectionate with one another, but still have a completely nonsexual, non-romantic relationship.
Even if the two people in question are capable of being sexually or romantically attracted to one another.
Because the friendship I share with someone I consider family in a way that transcends blood has been typecast as a romantic relationship ENTIRELY too many times, and I’m beginning to get sick of it.
“I’m like, ‘Okay, she’s a doll. She’s a plastic doll. She doesn’t have organs. If she doesn’t have organs, she doesn’t have reproductive organs. If she doesn’t have reproductive organs, would she even feel sexual desire?’ No, I don’t think she could,” Robbie said. “She is sexualized. But she should never be sexy. People can project sex onto her. Yes, she can wear a short skirt, but because it’s fun and pink. Not because she wanted you to see her butt.”
Margot Robbie said Ace Barbie Rights with her whole chest.
hey netizens! i’m not sure how many people are aware, but youtube’s been slowly rolling out a new anti-adblock policy that can’t be bypassed with the usual software like uBlock Origin and Pi-Hole out of the gate
BUT, if you’re a uBlock Origin user (or use an adblocker with a similar cosmetics modifier), you can add these commands in the uBlock dashboard to get rid of it!
reblog to help keep the internet less annoying and to tell corporations that try shit like this to go fuck themselves <3
Where do I copy-paste these to? “My filters”? “My Rules”?
‘my filters’! if you look closely you’ll notice the format is different between the two pages. the (website)(##)(additional text) format goes in filters
I thought about this song a lot when I was younger. All these important people and events- some that disappeared into the sands of time- others that changed the world forever. So much has happened in the span of the last 34 years- we felt like a little system update might be fun. Hope you like our take on it…
A dreamer and an artist. 30/libra
https://www.deviantart.com/sweetjedigirl00123/gallery/ (fanfiction)
Check out my side blog @where-dreamers-go here on Tumblr for Fandom Goodness!
