Brisingr

The first chapter in this roundup is all about making good on commitments. Eragon says, “it might take me a while […] but I always settle my debts” (279). He pulls gold up from the ground and distributes it to the people he owes for deeds, help, and wrongs he has done to them in the past. Gedric the tanner, for example, had no idea that it had been Eragon who took off with his finished hides; he could have gotten away with the misdeed, but he makes the decision to come clean and offer something in return.

Eragon believes himself to be the child of Morzan and Selena, both of whom are dead now but when alive were known as the most formidable foes to the Varden and Galbatorix’s most trusted allies. Eragon reveals to Jeod that Murtagh was their son, something Brom never discovered but Murtagh told Eragon during the Battle of the Burning Plains. Eragon keeps some things secret from Jeod, and there are questions he would like to ask the older man, such as why Brom gave him Morzan’s blade, or whether he had hidden himself in Carvahall for so many years in order to keep an eye on Eragon. He is holding back, perhaps in fear of judgment or because they are truths he has not yet come to grips with. Regardless of their half-truths, Jeod encourages him to study history. He may be referring directly to political and social history of the wider scope of Alagaësia, but the reader expects he may be asking Eragon to question what he’s been told about his personal history as well.

Fredric, the weapons master, has some advice to impart on Eragon: “Just as you would see to your horse, or Saphira, before you attended your own needs, so too you should care for your sword before yourself” (300). In this way, he reminds Eragon and the reader that long after the mortal dies, the weapon lives on. A man’s power, then, lies in his weapon rather than himself.