The Writer's Block

Alright, I am only a scholar insofar as I ended uni later than Mist and therefore the curse skill of literary analysis is still somewhat fresh in my memory, but this was very much a joint effort.

Now to address the issue of the Order fucking up and failing the Forsworn.

We feel like the real tragedy of the whole situation lies on the fact that the Order did everything right (with the resources they had and the state their world was in) and it wasn’t enough anyway. It takes something away from the Forsworn and their agency to reduce their motivations to being angry at the Order for failing them in some way.

Thing is, there wasn’t really anything the Order could do for Rider-dragon pairs who were cruel, volatile, selfish or otherwise unfit for service. The Riders as an organization had zero control over who joins them. A dragon chooses their Rider to compliment their own personality and there is no way of knowing what kind of person a dragon is while they’re still inside an egg. This would inevitably lead to an impulsive, low-empathy dragon possibly choosing a Rider who would only serve to strengthen and enable dangerous behaviour. Of course, these character traits do not, by themselves, make one a bad person, which leads me to our next point:

At the time of the Fall, the Riders had existed for two millennia, and other than Anurin and Dellanir’s disagreement, functioned throughout all that time without any massive issues. This tells us that something about their methods must have worked. They must have encountered problematic Rider pairs before. Hell, Oromis and Glaedr were one of those pairs – Paolini has described young Oromis as terrifying, and Glaedr once tore off a mountaintop in a rage. They were hardly paragons of good behaviour in their youth. Yet, they grew into some of the wisest and most valued members of the Order (based purely off of how the text explicitly characterizes them, regardless of any reader interpretation of their actions). We think this is the reason they did not separate Brom and Morzan. Oromis thought and hoped that he could steer Morzan toward a better path (remember that Morzan was a bully even before his betrayal) and likely believed that Brom and Saphira I. would be a positive influence. He was wrong, but that does not make him negligent or malicious.

I would argue that the general way the Riders as an organization dealt with problematic members was just that: steer them toward a better path as best they could and wait. They are immortal, even the most impulsive and short tempered members would grow into patience and wisdom eventually. And other than the Riders, there is no-one in Alagaësia who could keep a Rider pair under control, so it’s not like kicking anyone out was an option.

Returning briefly to Oromis, I think there tends to be a conflation between what he thinks and what the Order as a whole thought. It’s not like we have other Old Riders to inform us about what the Order was like, but frankly, Oromis is weird. An outlier, both among the elves and among the Riders. His opinions are not necessarily the Order’s opinions, and when he blames himself for Morzan’s fall, it cannot be taken as proof that the Riders were to blame, but rather as manifestation of his own trauma and what must have been massive survivor’s guilt.

Anyway, what in our opinion set off the Fall was a series of events that the Order could have handled if they happened separately, but not all at once. The Forsworn, as all people do, surely had a variety of motivations, not all of which had anything to do with the Order. We need to accept that at least some of those motivations were simple cruelty and hunger for power. It is not unrealistic to have people do evil things simply because they are cruel, God knows there are people like that in real world. Sometimes it’s just not that deep. And since the Riders lacked any way to get rid of members who turned out like that (short of straight up execution, which would be too extreme), it’s not unreasonable to think that there was thirteen such people within an order hundreds strong, who were just waiting for an opportunity to seize what they thought they deserved.

Ultimately, no-one but the Forsworn are to blame for the Forsworn’s choices. Galbatorix survived a great tragedy, but the Riders cannot help those who did not wish to be helped. There were many Riders who lost their dragon throughout the Order’s history, and Galbatorix was the only one who reacted by committing murder, enslavement and starting a genocidal war. His reaction was uniquely extreme, and no-one could have predicted it, much less do something about it (short of killing him preemptively, of course).

In our opinion, the Riders did not fail the Forsworn or Morzan or Galbatorix. Their choices were their own, as inevitable as they were in hindsight.

Alright, I am only a scholar insofar as I ended uni later than Mist and therefore the curse skill of literary analysis is still somewhat fresh in my memory, but this was very much a joint effort.

Now to address the issue of the Order fucking up and failing the Forsworn.

We feel like the real tragedy of the whole situation lies on the fact that the Order did everything right (with the resources they had and the state their world was in) and it wasn’t enough anyway. It takes something away from the Forsworn and their agency to reduce their motivations to being angry at the Order for failing them in some way.

Thing is, there wasn’t really anything the Order could do for Rider-dragon pairs who were cruel, volatile, selfish or otherwise unfit for service. The Riders as an organization had zero control over who joins them. A dragon chooses their Rider to compliment their own personality and there is no way of knowing what kind of person a dragon is while they’re still inside an egg. This would inevitably lead to an impulsive, low-empathy dragon possibly choosing a Rider who would only serve to strengthen and enable dangerous behaviour. Of course, these character traits do not, by themselves, make one a bad person, which leads me to our next point:

At the time of the Fall, the Riders had existed for two millennia, and other than Anurin and Dellanir’s disagreement, functioned throughout all that time without any massive issues. This tells us that something about their methods must have worked. They must have encountered problematic Rider pairs before. Hell, Oromis and Glaedr were one of those pairs – Paolini has described young Oromis as terrifying, and Glaedr once tore off a mountaintop in a rage. They were hardly paragons of good behaviour in their youth. Yet, they grew into some of the wisest and most valued members of the Order (based purely off of how the text explicitly characterizes them, regardless of any reader interpretation of their actions). We think this is the reason they did not separate Brom and Morzan. Oromis thought and hoped that he could steer Morzan toward a better path (remember that Morzan was a bully even before his betrayal) and likely believed that Brom and Saphira I. would be a positive influence. He was wrong, but that does not make him negligent or malicious.

I would argue that the general way the Riders as an organization dealt with problematic members was just that: steer them toward a better path as best they could and wait. They are immortal, even the most impulsive and short tempered members would grow into patience and wisdom eventually. And other than the Riders, there is no-one in Alagaësia who could keep a Rider pair under control, so it’s not like kicking anyone out was an option.

Returning briefly to Oromis, I think there tends to be a conflation between what he thinks and what the Order as a whole thought. It’s not like we have other Old Riders to inform us about what the Order was like, but frankly, Oromis is weird. An outlier, both among the elves and among the Riders. His opinions are not necessarily the Order’s opinions, and when he blames himself for Morzan’s fall, it cannot be taken as proof that the Riders were to blame, but rather as manifestation of his own trauma and what must have been massive survivor’s guilt.

Anyway, what in our opinion set off the Fall was a series of events that the Order could have handled if they happened separately, but not all at once. The Forsworn, as all people do, surely had a variety of motivations, not all of which had anything to do with the Order. We need to accept that at least some of those motivations were simple cruelty and hunger for power. It is not unrealistic to have people do evil things simply because they are cruel, God knows there are people like that in real world. Sometimes it’s just not that deep. And since the Riders lacked any way to get rid of members who turned out like that (short of straight up execution, which would be too extreme), it’s not unreasonable to think that there was thirteen such people within an order hundreds strong, who were just waiting for an opportunity to seize what they thought they deserved.

Ultimately, no-one but the Forsworn are to blame for the Forsworn’s choices. Galbatorix survived a great tragedy, but the Riders cannot help those who did not wish to be helped. There were many Riders who lost their dragon throughout the Order’s history, and Galbatorix was the only one who reacted by committing murder, enslavement and starting a genocidal war. His reaction was uniquely extreme, and no-one could have predicted it, much less do something about it (short of killing him preemptively, of course).

In our opinion, the Riders did not fail the Forsworn or Morzan or Galbatorix. Their choices were their own, as inevitable as they were in hindsight.