Along time ago, before the forming of the Loinfire Club, when the Chronicler wrote as an ambiguously-gendered poster known as "Theo", there was a theory... The Chronicler is still so very fond of it that she wants to share it yet again as she opens the new chapter of Brisingr.
We were reading Eragon, late one night, after enduring the horror that is the film (very pretty, though) and came up with the following theory, which neatly explains the some of the silly economics ofEragon and what happened to the gods of Alagaesia (as Eragon does repeatedly mention the existence of nonspecific deities.)
A Butcher requires 1200 people
A Blacksmith requires 1500 people
A Healer requires 1700 people
A Carpenter 550 people
A Tanner 2000 people
From: Medieval Demographics Made Easy
Yet Carvahall has but a population of 300...
The Humans of Alagaesia worship certain gods. One of the most important ones is The Butcher God. He has certain strictures, of which one can deduce by reading the book:
1) Thou shalt eat much meat; thou shalt not survive without eating meat.
This can be seen in Eragon and his family's need for meat to make it through the winter. Despite owning a farm and all its produce, they still need more meat from hunting and eat chicken for breakfast whilst their on the verge of not making it through the winter. Whatever happened to porridge? Or the eggs of the chickens. Or the milk from the cows.
This can also be seen in Eragon's raid of the Butcher when he runs away from Carvahall. He cares nothing for bread or other staple foodstuffs that don't rot in a day. He must have meat.
This also explains why Garrow's farm has such ridiculously small amounts of produce, yet still has excess to be sold off at Carvahall. They scorn the eating of vegetables. (They finished harvesting in about a day.)
2) The priests of the Butcher God shall be known as Butchers. There shalt be one in every settlement and they shalt be Clean.
This neatly explains why there is a butcher in Carvahall, when there is no need for one in a small farming settlement, where everyone can do their own butchering and own their own animals.
3) Thou shalt not kill your own animals. Take thou animals to the butcher so that they may be prepared in the Holy Way. Thou shalt then buy back thou meat.
This explains why the butcher, Sloan, has business. This explains why he has a ready stock of meat and even why he still has a stock of fresh prime cut meat to fill up Eragon's backpack when Horst demanded it, instead of having sold it all during the day.
4) Thou shalt cast aside the cheap cuts as they are unworthy of the Butcher God. Thou shalt eat only prime rump steak and the other good cuts of meat. Not even the dogs are fit to consume the unworthy meat.
It is obvious that everyone, including Horst, Garrow and Eragon, are devout worshippers of the Butcher God. Their concern over meat and their need for it thoughout the books can be seen.
This also explains the consumption of chicken for breakfast and Eragon's fondness of the simple fare of a hunk of meat boiled in salty water. This explains why Garrow isn't carefully boiling oxtails and offal for meaty stock for use in cooking.
5) Fish is not a Meat. Thou shalt not eat Fish instead of Meat.
This explains the curious lack of fishing near the sea or the enormous lakes (more on that later) of Alagaesia. They just don't need it. No one eats fish at any point, only ever cheese, meat or bread.
The second god of Alagaesia is the Smith God. These are his strictures:
1) Priests of the Smith God shalt be smiths. Only they shalt fix and make metal goods. For only they know the holy way.
Explains why every single village has its own smith and why Roran needs to take his chisel into Carvahall to get fixed. Of course, this is discounting the other meaning of chisel-fixing.
2) Thou shalt always take at least two apprentices.
Because one just isn't good enough.
Neatly explains why Horst needs two apprentices when he's working in one small village in the middle of nowhere, with nary a long distance journey horse in sight.
3) All thou horses shalt be shoed.
Gives Horst the business he needs when farm horses often don't need the shoeing due to only ever plodding on soft soil.
4) Thou must be a Master Smith to create complex machinery.
Explains why Horst is consulted for those damn mill parts. It's not a matter of skill, but of religious status. And that's never logical, is it?
5) All things shalt be forged and wrought. Even if they really shouldn't. Thou shalt love all things made of shiny metal. All things of worth shall resemble metals. Liquid and the appearance of liquid makes things more Holy.
This explains the poor starving family can spend money on trinkets, as Garrow repeatly produces not very much money from his pocket and tells Roran to spend it on a trinket. It also explains how the elf's helmet in the prologue is "wrought" out of amber and gold, wrought being a very specific action of folding and beating metal. Nigh impossible with something as soft as gold and as brittle as amber.
This also explains Chris' habit of describing things as "wrought" and "forged" out of something when its a mind-bogglingly stupid mixed metaphor that just doesn't work. Also, it explains Chris' other annoying habit of refering to things resembling liquid metals and gems. "Molten copper", "liquid diamond", "liquid silver"... etc...
This explains why Chris spends more time describing the sword (Ra'zac) than Eragon's angst about his dying uncle or the sheer horror of the death-strewn village. He spends far more time gazing on the arrows and spears.
6) Gold is the most Holy of all metals. All things of Importance shall be made of its brilliance. Next most holy is silver.
Explains why Eragon's armour is made out of gold, the very soft and heavy metal that is useless as practical armour. The helmet of gold in the prologue and assorted other inappropriate objects made from this metal.
There is also the Judgement God, who decides what is good and evil. He is probably often depicted playing chess, with black and white pieces. His strictures are as follows:
1) All Good things shalt be beautiful, shiny and white. All Evil things shalt be black, ugly and smelly.
This explains how Arya can smell of pine trees after months of imprisonment with the Urgals, who smell of fetid flesh.
This also explains the appearance and colour of everything in the book, such as the black arrows of the Urgals vs the swan-feather-fletched arrows of the elves. This explains the white baby on a spear and the black crow about to eat it.
2) Killing is neither good nor evil. If you are good, it is good to kill evil things and evil to kill good things. If you are evil, it is evil to kill both good and evil things.
The elves are fervent worshippers of the Judgment god. His duality can be seen rather prominently in their descriptions. They kill Urgals and other evil characters without reservation. They mutilate enemy corpses and kill envoys, and it's all okay, because they're Good and the enemy is Evil.
Finally, there is the Merchant God. He is less widely worshipped, but we can detect his cult in the major trading cities.
1) Taxes are Evil as they Oppress trade.
This explains why the Empire of Galbatorix is evil, despite having no other obvious act of oppression. Taxes are evil in the eyes of the Merchant God, and that is why the Empire must be deposed.
2)Thou shalt keep records of All thou transactions on Parchment.
This explains why everything is written on parchment instead of paper. (Parchment being expensive things made out of animal skins and paper being the cheaper stuff made out of wood chips and bark.) This also explains why records have been kept about the selling of Acid-Oil to the Ra'zac, which really has no reason to be on records anywhere. Empire owned ships, shipping to locations of the super-secret hideout of the Ra'zac shouldn't really leave a paper trail, yet it does.
Cult of the Farmer God
Thus are the strictures of the Farmer God:
1) All farms must be as far from cities as possible, so as not to be tainted by their civillisation.
Explains why there appear to be no villages or farmhouses or fields near cities. It also explains why Carvahall, little village at the edge of the great and glorious Empire, is featured on the map of it. It is a farming village furthest away from the cities, therefore it is becomes a site of pilgrimage and holy importance. Hence all the traders travelling there every year, why else would they visit? After all, villagers from a community with its own smith and tanner - thereby usurping all possible business from visiting tinkers - should be travelling to a market town yearly instead.
It also explains why Garrow's farm is a whole ten miles away from Carvahall for no real reason.
2)Thou shallt sell your Produce to the first trader thou meetest who will buy it. Thou shalt not hold out for a better deal.
It explains why Garrow sells his produce to random traders instead of travelling to a market town where he would set his own price.
It also explains why Eragon only manages to sell his horse for "a few coins", when it should be worth quite a lot of money, as horses are. (Horses are worth something in the ball-part of 300-600g of silver.)
3) Thou must pick a variety of crops on the same day. Thou shalt pick from each of your crops on each day of the harvest, for all are equal in the Eyes of the Farmer God. And thou shalt store it in a Holy Place.
Explains why Garrow and his helpers pick a little bit of everything: "last of the barley [...] prickly-vined squash, the rutabagas, beets, peas, turnips, and beans" (p.21, Eragon, hardback) all on one day. They should have more produce than that, so, if we give them the benefit of the doubt, they're using some mighty interesting picking tecniques.
4) All produce of the farm is holy in the eyes of the Farmer God and must be preserved for as long as possible. Eat of cheese and bread, the holiest product of the Farm.
This is why they carefully preserve everything for no reason and then neglect to eat it at any point. Or even think about eating it.
This explains why they only ever eat bread and/or cheese, when the characters of Eragon are not hunting. They do occassionally eat porridge or other foodstuffs, like that cherry pie of Eragon's (cherry pie is holy because it contains preserved cherries), but mostly, it's just bread and cheese.
It also explains why Eragon's bread can last over two weeks in the desert.
This also explains why Eragon feels the need to preserve Brom's body. And where Eragon has seen a mummy before (cf. the nitpick of Garrow's description). The Farmer God acts as the God of Death, or at least, death rites, in the bizarre culture of Alagaesia.
5) Thou shalt not improve thou fields with fertilliser or irrigation or any such other unnatural acts.
This explains why there is so much dry grass around Carvahall which should be irrigated and fertillised into good farmland and thus producing amounts which could last them through winter without supplementing. Hence also Garrow and other farmers not needing to have a mixed farm (the most logical sort of farm to have in case crops or animals of one variety fail). Of course, we can assume this is a world where crop rotation hasn't been invented yet.
Not wanting fertilliser would mean not needing to keep animals for that ever useful byproduct.
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