*rubs my grubby little hands together* alright here we go~ stick with me for a minute, this Does come around to murtagh and eragon's relationship i promise
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I find it ironic that the circumstances of Murtagh’s life that went so awry- his capture by the Empire, his and Thorn’s enslavement using their true names, and them being forced to fight against the Varden- can paint him in a particularly selfish light. Eragon’s perspective reveals some of this, like the way he calls Murtagh’s oaths to Galbatorix a betrayal, one that favors his own wellbeing over Eragon and the Varden, or how he feels like Murtagh takes satisfaction in his new power and in lashing out at the world. And the fact that these things can be seen as self-serving specifically is ironic because it directly contradicts the actual quality of his character. Every time we see Murtagh acting of his own volition, over and over it proves that, more than anything, he is deeply devoted to the people he cares about- to a self sacrificing extent- and that he has an innate desire to help others.
Repeatedly, Murtagh puts protecting his loved ones above his own safety, and that’s true even in the act Eragon calls a betrayal. When they talk in Uru’baen, Murtagh admits to Nasuada that he willingly chose to swear loyalty to Galbatorix, but also reveals that he only did so after Thorn hatched. Murtagh himself had already suffered savage torture without relenting, yet solely for the sake of Thorn, to keep his hatchling partner from suffering as well, only then does Murtagh swear loyalty. And this is a self sacrifice. This undermines what he tried to make of his life before being recaptured- striking back against the Empire, aiding Eragon and Saphira, and proving his good will to the Varden. He had to give up all these things about himself and submit to slavery under a man he loathes, but Murtagh was willing to do that to protect Thorn.
And yet, while still trapped so hopelessly under Galbatorix’s thumb, Murtagh also goes out of his way to help Nasuada too. He convinces the king to capture her in the first place, instead of simply killing her, and whether or not this was his place, it demonstrates how he genuinely doesn’t want her to be harmed. He goes out of his way to help Nasuada by healing her pain, warning her about illusions, and promising to help her escape. And he makes good on that. From what he tells Eragon in their last duel, he had a plan to free her the next day. Murtagh goes to great lengths that put him at great risk. Galbatorix could have just as well discovered his interference and then nothing would have saved him from violent punishment. Freeing her would have guaranteed that. There’s nothing for him to gain, yet he still does these things for Nasuada time and time again.
The care Murtagh gives to Thorn and Nasuada proves that his selfless protectiveness toward his loved ones is a persistent part of his nature, but it’s never more clear than it is in his relationship with Eragon in the first book.
In Inheritance, Murtagh tells Nasuada that his initial motivation for going out to track the Ra’zac was to hurt the Empire and to prove himself as more than his father’s son. Nevertheless, from the time that he saved Eragon from the Ra’zac onwards, he demonstrates a desire to help that goes beyond a personal gain. On the contrary, I feel like his constant willingness to help while he personally strives to be recognized as his own person indicates that his helpfulness is a genuine part of his nature that shapes his desires and actions. And that nature shows itself repeatedly. Murtagh rescues Eragon a second time when he’s captured in Gil’ead, planning with Saphira and sneaking his way in to free him. When Eragon later thanks him for it, his response is, “‘I’m just glad I could help. It...’ Murtagh faltered and rubbed his face.”
After going to great lengths and knowingly risking his life to free Eragon from Gil’ead, Murtagh's instinctual response to his gratitude is that he simply wanted to help his friend. And this comes up again. When they fight in the Hadarac Desert, Eragon tells Murtagh he never had to travel with him or rescue him. “‘I haven’t forced you to do anything.’” Murtagh’s response is always funny to me because he’s irritable, afraid, and angry and so he’s deliberately trying to be mean and act like he doesn’t care about Eragon, and yet his reply is, “‘Oh, not openly, no. What else could I do but help you with the Ra’zac? And then later, at Gil’ead, how could I have left with a clear conscience? The problem with you...is that you’re so totally helpless that you force everyone to take care of you!’”
It does nothing except prove how much he cares about Eragon and wants to help him! “‘What else could I do but help you with the Ra’zac?’” is especially funny because the glaringly obvious answer is to just. not help. But then that makes it clear that Murtagh so genuinely and inherently believes he should help that he doesn’t see not helping as a real option. And even though he phrases it insultingly in his frustration, what he ultimately says about Gil’ead is that he couldn’t have made himself abandon Eragon when he couldn’t defend himself. He would have felt too guilty because he considers saving him the right thing to do.
I feel like a large part of this springs from Murtagh’s core morality and desire to do good, but there is also an element rooted in his relationship with Eragon specifically. They get along; Murtagh likes him and he trusts him and that matters when the help he gives him puts him at such risk. Murtagh is self sacrificing in the way he protects and looks after Eragon. Sneaking in to Gil’ead to rescue him could have cost him his life- Eragon himself acknowledges that when he thanks him for it. And the risks he takes for him aren’t just overblown or inconsequential. When Murtagh enters Gil’ead beforehand, in Eragon’s stead, to find out the Varden’s location, he’s recognized and has to flee. When he stays with Eragon as they run from the Urgal army, it forces him to the Varden where he’s imprisoned.
And yet those repercussions don’t undermine Murtagh’s devotion to Eragon. Even when they reach the Varden, the one place Murtagh did not want to go and will rob him of his freedom, his heartfelt care for Eragon doesn’t falter. After Eragon’s mind is searched by one of the Twins who then tries to do the same to Murtagh, they have this exchange:
“‘Eragon has been declared trustworthy, so you cannot threaten to kill him to influence me. Since you can’t do that, nothing you say or do will convince me to open my mind.’
Sneering, the bald man cocked what would have been an eyebrow, if he had any. ‘What of your own life? I can still threaten that.’
‘It won’t do any good,’ said Murtagh stonily and with such conviction that it was impossible to doubt his word.”
Murtagh’s statement is striking to me because the blatant, undeniable meaning behind it is that, if they’d tried to test Murtagh first and threatened to kill Eragon if he didn’t comply, he would have done it. Murtagh would have let the Twin examine his mind to save Eragon’s life. And the privacy and sanctity of his mind is of paramount importance to him. He says as much to Ajihad when he also tries to convince him to be examined. He declares as much right here! Murtagh explicitly states that protecting Eragon’s life is the singular thing that could make him yield. He would give up his own life before exposing his mind. This has even more gravity for Murtagh specifically. He’s self sacrificing, but not reckless in the same way several of the other main characters are. He’s not one to toss his life aside; he fights hard to survive. So his willingness to die to guard his mind hammers home how important that is to him.
Because of that, even though such a situation never came to pass, Murtagh’s admission that he would give that up to protect Eragon’s life is the most salient proof of his devotion to me. And that’s considering he also fights the Ra’zac and infiltrates Gil’ead for him! I honestly don’t have another word for it- Murtagh holds a truly profound devotion to Eragon that is built upon his desire to help others and to fervently protect the people he cares for. These aspects are so integral to him that they determine his most significant choices.
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so with a platonic yandere (or yanderes) how does it work, do you just never get the chance to have a romantic relationship, do they force/encourage you into one with someone 'approved' like a family friend or someone 'in the know' sort of thing, or do their feelings change or border on the romantic side as well?
Well, I find for me personally it often depends on the character themselves for like, what kind of relationship im looking for, or, yeah sometimes i just switch it up based on concept, sometimes i get a real specific idea that stays in my brain and I can go back and forth depending on, I guess, preference. It's kind of a recent-ish development for me to think of platonic yandere AT ALL since like 99% of the time my brain goes "well if they don't love you romantically or want to fuck you what is THE POINT"
And it kind of took me a while to realize that sometimes "the point" of platonic yandere can be that they technically "don't get anything back". If they scoop you up and force therapy on you, it's because they want to legitimately help you, not to say a romantic/sexual yandere wouldn't, but for a platonic one it's more I guess "selfless" because they aren't like, getting a spouse or a fuck buddy out of it. With a platonic yandere, they don't want you to hook up with that guy because, yeah they're jealous you're not spending time with THEM but its like, spending time watching movies or going to the park or playing video games, spending time with you as you, doing potentially anything, but also they have you up on this pedestal and the guy is just an insignificant little worm to them. He thinks he can date THEIR sister? Creep creep go to jail eat dirt go six feet under here's a shovel start digging
I can be so moody and contextual about the whole thing, like for example, I've been making a lotta posts about a purely platonic yandere Batfamily with Bruce as you know the patriarch and all that, basically becoming a father figure to you even if you're already an adult, where he is like emphatically "no, Reader is your sibling, S I B L I N G" and getting out the batbottle and spraying them like cats any time he may notice anyone in his house catching feelings for you, but i also thought about, (this is kind of an AFAB specific idea sorry) what if Damian specifically developed one of those weird "big sister when i grow up im gonna marry you" complexes and Bruce is NOT having it when suddenly Damian hits him with "but FATHER, if I'M Reader's husband when I come of age, then our offspring will be YOUR biological grandchildren" and Bruce finds himself sitting there suddenly vividly picturing you holding a fat little newborn with a big head of black hair and smiling up at him "dad come hold your grandson 🥰" and he's. He's gone, like, suddenly he can't see it any other way. OBVIOUSLY Damian is the perfect husband for you, Bruce is helping raise him? Who would make a better spouse for his adopted daughter than his ACTUAL son? Talk about keeping it in the family
In his eyes, his son would make a more than competent husband once he comes of age, especially considering not only is Damian his son but, extremely similar to Bruce himself; broody angsty genius with superhuman skills, intelligence, athleticism, etc. And if not Damian, isn't Dick lowkey his favorite child, and also, you know. Already an adult and not nearly as emotionally constipated 😅 Bruce can trust either one of them to take care of you, building off of a paranoia that any place outside his family and his home is fraught with danger and anyone who hasn't been explicitly vetted by him suddenly cannot be trusted in your presence
I keep finding myself drifting back to platonic yandere but only in like, almost extremely specific circumstances, like for real those age regression ideas i realized are coming from like DEEP places of trauma and rejection for me and feeling like I'm so permanantly damaged i literally need a do over and need to be all but remade from scratch, being helped when i was younger and at my lowest points in childhood, and I'll admit I've noticed most of these platonic yandere ideas usually revolves around aspects of family, fatherhood, childhood, etc. Like literally right off the top of my head, two characters who kind of got the platonic yan ball rolling were Stolas from Helluva Boss and Nolan Grayson from Invincible, both of them fathers. Of course I would absolutely let Nolan tear this ass up too though as you guys have seen, like i find the Viltrumite Reader concepts kind of keep fluctuating between "he wants to mentor you and then catches feelings" to "no he just wants to be your dad and Viltrum mentor and after your real family dies during some kind of monster attack he just straight up adopts you and moves you into his house and the government lets him bc, i mean, they need to keep an eye on you as a Viltrumite"
Of course I also like the idea of sort of a middle ground. You know, like, the yandere begins purely platonic without any sort of intentions but it develops into something deeper after they've already come to know you and you trust them, or even, they're actually totally 100% "a normal person" and something happens to you or them where they suddenly become yandere. Like imagine you know someone for like a couple years and then all of a sudden, they're acting differently. So I've also thought about, Bruce and Reader are work friends in the Justice League and his feelings begin as purely protective and platonic and he knows you for a decent chunk of time but when he starts getting to know you more personally, more details about you the person under the costume, maybe he eventually realizes he's getting extremely jealous watching you interact with other men and, maybe in the process of taking care of you his feelings change. You get wounded on the job and you don't have any family to help provide any care while you're still extremely weak and recovering and he's helping you and that's when he suddenly realizes "oh shit this line of work is so dangerous, he doesn't want you to die, he doesn't want anyone to die but like you most specifically, he doesnt want you doing this anymore" and maybe he brings you to the manor for recovery and you never wind up leaving
But typically yes, as you suggested, usually when I've picked a character to be a platonic yandere it's because I can see them being overly protective to the point they won't let you date at all, even if the specific reasons for WHY may change. Like hypothetically for some of the ideas I've had, Stolas doesn't want you to date or have sex period because he's kind of Goin Through Some Shit and this is kind of like his second go around of being a dad and him expressing some sort of trauma or guilt over Octavia and he sees you as His Extra Special Little Girl and you don't get so much as a kiss on the cheek with another person until like, he's had enough years with you to be satisfied with "your childhood" kwim. Or a yandere who declares themselves as your sibling not completely against you dating or all that but they just have EXTREMELY high standards. like lmao imagine, like, someone like Deku basically inserting himself in your life as your brother and you're like "ok fuck dude, who do you think WOULD be worthy of dating me" and he's just like "I guess someone like All Might!" Like bro that platonic obsessive little twink is NEVER letting you get laid, you suck off ONE dick and he's holing up in his room CRYING because "someone's defiled his baby sister and made her dirty" not in the sense that he like doesn't like you anymore or he's judging YOU but in his mind your "purity" has been tainted by someone else and the only solution is to like, kill/get rid of that person and "atone" by never letting it happen again, cause obviously by letting you suck that guy off Izuku FAILED YOU, and maybe at some point he snaps and you wake up from one of your mandatory sibling cuddle sessions and he's pressed way too closely to you as he declares he's the only one worthy of you and he's sorry he didn't realize HE'S the husband you needed
Really I'm just a creepy little freak and it can depend on how I'm needing or craving to feel accepted in that particular moment in time 😅
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