I’ll be honest, I was nervous to write this post. As Book Talk further develops, I want to dive deep into fiction and find how it speaks to the every day. A lot of today’s media is surface level, going no deeper than pretty visuals. I didn’t want to do that. But I’m a sucker for the backdrop of Eragon.
I literally just watched The Magnificent Seven from 2016 and kept thinking “wow, westerns are gorgeous.” Anything medieval or set in a time before technology is my love language. The effort characters have to go through to gather food, the romanticism of riding horseback from place to place, the struggle with nature and overcoming of limitations. Not to mention the general look. Oof, I could go on.
Eragon is my scenic dream, but this post has to have more substance than “wow, it’s gorgeous.” And while I will obsess, I do think Eragon’s backdrop has something to tell readers. Or, more accurately, writers.
Rolling Hills and Calm Fields
The book and movie open with Eragon in a small village called Carvahall. He works and sleeps on his uncle’s farm, spending endless days in the same rolling fields and teeming forests. The village itself is what you’d expect from any medieval tale: butchers and blacksmiths toiling away while women care for children and the home. The dirt roads are worn from traders and travelers carting goods and stories of Alagaesia and dragons. Everyone knows each other, whether the opinion is good or not.
Awe, I can see it all. Smoke billowing from furnaces, throwing ash onto shingled roofs. The sweet smell of bread wafting from open windows while children play on doorsteps. Young men squelching through dewy grass on their way to chop firewood. Perhaps there’s a school teacher chastising her students about getting distracted by the strangers entering town. Some young ladies giggling by the fountain while boys follow their fathers to work. The thud of a cleaver in bone, the clang of hammered metal. The smell of the forest and stench of yesterday’s garbage.
Oh, sorry. That’s not in the book. I’ve actually found that most novels don’t spend an obnoxious amount of time describing the setting (a skill I’m working on). Anyway, you get the picture. Eragon is living in a perpetual cycle of village life. Everything’s mundane even if each day is a little different. The only true change occurs when traders come in with wild tales about Alagaesia. But within the village, the whole of the kingdom may as well be another planet. And while the stories bring intrigue, they don’t create real change in the setting. Everything is calm and maintained. Until it isn’t.
Deceptive Deserts and Mountain Peaks
Once Saphira is hatched and Eragon and Brom leave Carvahall, everything changes. The landscape constantly shifts from cities to deserts to mountains. Mundane no longer exists; Eragon is being exposed to the entire kingdom.
Here’s where the movie loses cause the book literally takes them to deserts and mountains. The movie settles in the Spine, a long trail of dense forest filled with its own dangers. Now, I personally love this part of the movie because, again, I’m a sucker for forests and ambling through nature. The book, however, takes us to a city bathed in golden light and packed with people of unknown motives. Then we’re dropped in a desert with little food and endless sand. Finally we return to some forests and trek alongside a river until reaching the underground cavern of the Varden.
As we travel through this changing landscape, Eragon becomes unsettled and uncertain about his various companions and ultimate goal in life. The world he knew, the constant cycle of village life, is a distant dream that no longer fits his opened eyes. Every step takes him further from where he was, literally and mentally. Even at the end of the book and coming into the next, he struggles with his place in this giant world.
A Lesson in Tone
A great landscape furthers the plot and big picture impression a reader should receive. A tone booster if you will. For Eragon, the juxtaposition of his mundane village to the constantly changing Alagaesia heightens the idea of Eragon’s emotional journey of finding a place in a bigger world than he anticipated. More than the gorgeous visuals one can paint in their mind or the romanticism of simple life, readers walk the unknown with Eragon and feel just as helpless as he. Because we don’t know what’s coming next.
Not a crazy realization, but I think it’s cool for writers to understand the impact of a setting. Visual appeal works for movies, but every word matters in a novel. The backdrop you paint will either help or hurt your story. So when it comes to enhancing your story and turning up the tension, don’t forget the setting.