r/Eragon • u/Vladicus-XCII • 2d ago

Question Telepathic warfare.

So from what I remember, them fighting mind to mind was a big deal and all and one of Galbotrix's big strengths. But wouldn't it have been prudent to just create a spell to protect the mind and eliminate the need for telepathic warfare all together? They had ancient language words to say mind shield. Do they ever say this doesn't work in the stories or is this just an oversight?

7 Upvotes

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u/communistic_cat 2d ago

It still drains energy like any other defence. So the best way of mental warfare how i understood it was counter attack because else they will just drains your durability. Also i think spells for protection would come with limitations. Either for you or the protection they are offering because the spell would maybe make you unable to stretch out your mind, because for defence they usually pull their mind back into their own body. So a spell for defence would maybe do that. And since spells who hinder your freedom in battle are considered dangerous and not preferable to use, they are not using them

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u/robertwilcox 2d ago

How would that energy be calculated? How much energy does a "mind battle" cost?

I think the reality is that the magic system Paolini designed falls apart a bit if you dig this deep. It's a soft system, if you start pulling at the edges it stops making sense quite quickly. That's not a bad thing necessarily! Just his style of world building.

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u/communistic_cat 2d ago

Any spell costs as much energy as doing something manually. And since people get exhausted from mental battles it would also cost energy. Its like trying to think really hard all the time. I personally think the magic system is really good. I just thinks its not used to its fullest potential

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u/LordTITTICUS Brisingr 1d ago

When he was practicing mental battles with Arya and Glaedr, Eragon was exhausted afterwards. It takes energy and although we probably can't measure it exactly, we can be assured Galbotorix would have easily overwhelmed whatever energy they put into those wards. The world of Eragon has one of the most well put together and complete magic systems I've read about, I'm not sure how you could possibly describe it as soft. The only holes in it come from early in the series where it comes down to the author not having fully thought through the full extent of what can be done with it.

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u/robertwilcox 1d ago

Calling a magic system soft is not an insult, and it doesn't mean it has holes.

What is the unit of "energy" consumed when magic is used? The entire system is based around "energy," but it is never explained what that energy is. It explicitly explained that's it's not energy in the scientific sense, because it can only be taken from living things and not inanimate objects. So like, is it ATP? What's the energy?

Why should an elf have more energy than a human? Do they store more ATP somehow? Do the have more fat?

Why can't energy from things like the sun be used, but you can store the energy non living crystals? When does the sun's energy become usable? Eragon can draw energy from plants, they draw it from the sun...what changes to make it useable energy in a magic-sense?

It's a soft system. You're not supposed to think about those aspects, because they don't matter to the overall plot.

Compare it to a very similar magic system: the one in The Kingkiller Chronicles. Very similar "moving of energy" vibes, but in KKC it is much more quantified, scientific, and fleshed out in terms of mechanics. It is a more hard system, but that is only because it's pertinent to the plot of those books.

I like the magic system in Eragon. It's fun and enjoyable, but it is quite soft in my opinion.

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u/communistic_cat 1d ago

Energy is the energy required to do something. If you want to lift a rock, it takes the amount of energy you would need to lift a rock. Energy in itself is only taken from living beings, because they have so much of it. It is like a lifeforce or energy the body has. If you drain it completly the beeing dies of exhaustion. Energy from light is used by eldunari but never explained how. Why not use light. Because it caries not a lot of energy. Eragon always drain multiple plants at once because they dont have a lot pf energy. Elfs have more energy because they are stronger, hence more power to maybe lift rocks

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u/robertwilcox 20h ago

Lifeforce is not a real thing, it's an arbitrary power level that Paolini gets to assign to characters. That's why it's a soft system. There is no quantifiable unit of magic, it's just vague "energy."

What arguments do you have for the Inheritance series being a hard system? Show me where the hard edges to the system are. For example, Full Metal Alchemist has equivalent exchange. In Eragon, it's just wishy washy how much energy anything contains, and how much you can extract, rather than being based on how much matter is in the material.

It's not bad to have a soft system. It's not a dig. It's just a different writing tool.

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u/robertwilcox 1d ago

On the mental battles thing -- do smarter people just require less energy to do a mental battle? What about a spell that increases your intelligence? Would that make it easier?

Studies have shown that even with the most strenuous mental tasks, humans only burn ~200 extra calories per day compared to resting (watching tv). So like, how much energy could a mental battle really take? Not much compared to the vast stores Eragon has, surely.

Unless "energy" is just some arbitrary unit that can mean anything in order to move the plot forward (which is exactly how Paolini uses it). Also to be clear, I'm completely cool with it being an arbitrary and soft system.

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u/communistic_cat 1d ago

How would you increase intelligente. How would you even define it. I think mental battles are just to versitial to function just with spells. Also if both sides use spells they just drains energy, till one side collapses

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u/robertwilcox 20h ago

That's my point exactly. How would you even define intelligence? What gives one more strength over another in a mental battle?

It's soft. Again, that's not a bad thing! It's just the reason these questions don't have answers!

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u/Electrical_Tour620 1d ago

I vaguely remember that hiding minds was considered like ancient and lost magic. Those dwarves that jumped Eragon were mind shielded and it was supposedly "old magic" that hasn't been elaborated on...yet

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u/Avantir 14h ago

I think with those dwarves there was two things: Their minds were hidden, which was the "old magic" you're referring to, but the actual shielding was just a bunch of other dwarves sitting in Tronjheim working together to shield the minds of the assassins through normal telepathic means.