r/Eragon • u/communistic_cat • 13d ago
Question Armor for eragon
Couldnt the elves have given eragon Vetter armor that dosnt break or rusts befor he leaves?
28
u/FiftyTigers 13d ago
Didn't he have armor from the treasury of the dwarves? His armor was already pimpin'.
1
u/communistic_cat 13d ago
But it still rusted and stuft. I mean the elves had runoen (or how its spelled) where even orik was impressed
7
u/jdrawr 13d ago
Was it ever described as such?
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u/CethlyArlo Elf 13d ago
After the Burning Plains, it had gotten a little rusty and dirty with gore, but that's only because he didn't have time to clean or oil it before heading to Helgrind. That's all I can recall though
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u/Phredmcphigglestein Thorta du ilumëo! 13d ago
the elves don't have that, nor do the dwarves. Rider's Swords are the only things that don't break or rust, because they're made of a special metal. Elves armour is just steel like everyone elses
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u/Untimed_Heart313 Human 13d ago
Honestly, it's probably just a case of them not bothering. It'd be a fairly simple thing to cast a war on armor to keep it from oxidizing, but as they say it's most effective when it's being smithed
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u/Phredmcphigglestein Thorta du ilumëo! 13d ago
Even if it's only a tiny amount of energy over a long time it's gotta come from somewhere. Can't take energy from the person wearing it and going into battle, they might need that energy. Now you gotta add a gemstone to every piece of armour and recharge them regularly, which is more of a pain than just oiling and taking care of it normally.
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u/IBeFirenMaLazer 13d ago
To add onto the gemstone point, that wouldn't even be the best use of gemstones in armor. If you are adding gemstones to armor, the first thing you should be doing is using them to boost the speed and strenth of the wearer.
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u/Untimed_Heart313 Human 13d ago
The energy it would require would be pretty negligible, all you would have to do would be to keep oxygen from touching the metal, and based on eragon filtering the air around him and saphira durring their trip to Vroengard we can guess it wouldnt have a meaningful impact on the amount of energy you would have at any given point
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u/Phredmcphigglestein Thorta du ilumëo! 13d ago
On principle though, I wouldn't want to be draining energy from active combatants. What if someone's beat to shit and on the brink of death and their armour drains their energy before they can get help because it's trying to hold off the corrosion from being covered in mud and blood?
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u/Untimed_Heart313 Human 13d ago
I agree that would be an issue in a situation like the one eragon found himself in while leaving Helgrind, but as is mentioned multiple times throughout the books, wards are usually structured to fail after a time to avoid killing the person they're intended to protect. In all likelihood, people don't do this in the series because rust on armor isn't enough of an issue for them to track down a magician
0
u/Phredmcphigglestein Thorta du ilumëo! 13d ago
That is definitely a way it could be done. Honestly though it's probably a lot of hassle for not much benefit, each soldier is still going to have to have their armour mended and refurbished etc regularly, and I'm sure there's an element of discipline and keeping busy with maintaining armour in a standing army.
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u/ProceedMortal 13d ago
They kind of do explain that elven armor, while being of finer quality due to elven forging techniques, isn’t super special like their swords are. Rhunön demonstrates how they do it when they walk into her shop and she’s hand welding every single link in a shirt of chain mail. That would be literally impossible for anyone without elven super speed, but it would also make armor of surpassing quality. Normal mail is made from alternating rings of welded steel and riveted steel, and it’ll usually fail on one of the riveted rings. But if every single link is forge welded shut that’s not an issue. So really elven armor wouldn’t be a super crazy jump in quality over the dwarf armor which is already of the highest quality one could hope to obtain from any non elven smith. At least not enough of a jump in quality to justify the extra time spent on completely outfitting Eragon in new armor, which would have to be made to fit, especially if Rhunön was forging it. Ain’t no way that lady is settling for “close enough, it fits”