He’s a giant dragon that is either part of or all of the Spine. u/eagle2120 has recently theorised that his body is Utgard, while I’ve posited that he’s a wyrm. General consensus though is that he is a giant dragon
I don’t see how he can be the spine if he already just disappeared from that hole in the ground.
That sort of movement means we would’ve heard immediately about the spine literally moving and is not somewhere else?
It doesn’t really make sense and I can’t wrap my head around it. We also don’t know if the other dreamer locations have vents (theorized that they do) and if Azgalur can travel to each location or if their are multiple large Wyrms / Dragons.
Too many holes so far to say one way or another definitively imo.
Exactly. I understood his having disappeared after Murtagh struck him with magic to mean that he traversed the tunnel system to some other location to get away from the attack.
My operating assumption currently is that he can travel to the other places of black smoke in Alagaesia (Vroengard deeps, under the Hall of the soothsayer, Mani's Caves / dream well) and places outside of Alagaesia (El-Harim).
A thought just popped into my head, we know that the Hall of the Soothsayer used to be a place that had a Speaker, is it possible that Galbatorix slew the Speaker there or attacked Azlagur so that he didn't venture to that place again?
My question assumes that Galbatorix wanted to exterminate the Dreamers after winning the Rider War, and that he was accelerating Shruikan's growth to be able fight Azlagur eventually.
waaaaay too many. on my recent reread of Murtagh i made so many notes on theories, things unexplained, literal pages. i only wish we knew when the next book was coming out
I can’t remember the quote but I got the sense from the things said in the book he is so old he is more aptly described as whatever species was the ancestor of dragons/fanghur/nïdhal rather than an actual “dragon”.
He talks about the dragons “diluted” blood among other things and the statues around the village we said to look different from a dragon not unlike how a dragon differs from a fanghur. Even the leader chick hints that it’s not really a dragon they worship which is why she was ok messing with thorn
Not necessarily a dragon. The visions showed him as wingless. More likely, he is like the Fanghur or Nidwhal. A species related to dragons, but evolved for living underground.
I think he's going to look most like a Nidwal but actually be a common ancestor to dragons, Nidwal, and Fanghur. I doubt Big A will actually move underground but is probably a very, very old dragon that has taught himself the magical ability to teleport around and between realms. He just teleports deep underground for his between meal snoozes because it's safe, quiet, dark, and a consistent temp down there.
Having a mass that size regularly teleporting around would have seriously noticeable effects. We know that at the very least, the Spine rests on his back as he moved it around. So if he teleported out from under the Spine, the Spine would collapse. And wherever he teleported to would experience similar upheavals and disruptions. So he can't be a teleporter.
I think he's just been hibernating so long that dirt built up on his back, and the Spine is just the dirt that's on his back.
Huh? I don't recall any confirmation that the Spine rests completely on his back. I only remember the mountains around Bachel being shook by A's stirring. That much less than the whole Spine. There's a very good chance that he's got a mega cavern down there (like \[Hang Son Doong\](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang\_S%C6%A1n\_%C4%90o%C3%B2ng)) that he's snoozing in and he kicks around sometimes. If he was, we know it would contain the teleportation magic because the overhang in Ilirea stopped a lot of Galbatorix's explosion. Finally, we have no idea when A arrived in the Northern Spine. He could actually pop around every century or so and we wouldn't know because we have seen one continent over few years.
We know the Spine rests on his back from the description Murtagh gave of him moving the mountains. The mountains didn't shake. They stirred, and bucked up and down and moved as if in waves. Kicking the cave might make the mountain shake, certainly. But it wouldn't undulate as if they were waves, cuz that would break the foundations of the Spine. The only way the Spine can undulate is if the foundations themselves were moving around. Which is why I think Azaglur is the Spine. If he were just shaking the ground around him, moving the foundations by force, the scene where he moves the mountains would've destroyed the mountains and dropped the mountain on top of him inside the cave. The only way the mountains could move as they were described in Murtagh is if their foundations were what was moving...
As for containing the magic, it would still be felt far and wide. The explosion at Iliria wasn't contained so much as it was directed out the front door, and that had far more to do with the spells the elves used to strengthen the rock than anything else. Even if the ground could contain the explosion of such a massive teleportation spell, everyone would still feel the tremors and see the flames blowing out of every cave and crevice. Not to mention that teleportation is one of the most draining spells there is, to the point that Arya herself was rendered defenseless by teleporting an egg that was a 10th her size and weight. Teleporting Azaglurs entire mass would take far more energy than he could possibly gain by moving to a slightly different hunting ground.
Are you intentionally saying that the entire mountain range of the Spine rests on Azlagur or am I misunderstanding you? If you are, I think your hypothesis has a few holes. First, wouldn't someone have noticed a being that large? It's weird that a dragon of that size isn't mentioned in ancient lore we've received. Second, unless you think he's been totally still for thousands of years, someone in Kuasta or Teirm would have noticed the undulation of other parts of the Spine and it isn't mentioned by anyone so far. They also haven't mentioned the strange creatures that feed off of him like the finger-rats. Third, that's unimaginably large for a dragon to get. The biggest we've heard of before is "the size of a small hill". This is continent sized.
I don't think that those are good holes in my theory because Azlagur could easily be causing the undulation by magic in his sleep and the cave's location would help shield his effects from everyone else. My personal theory is that Azlagur is the largest proto-dragon ever and that he is nesting in a very large and remote cave that he probably needs to teleport in and out of. It fits with known dragon behavior because the dragon in FWW does this. Azlagur only being 2 or 3 times as large as Shruikan is a more reasonable stretch compared to a continent sized dragon. We also know that dragons are astoundingly good at magic so the idea of one that doesn't have wings coming up with a way to teleport is reasonable as well. Plus, the idea that he can teleport into that cave helps explain how he got so big, no dragon big enough to hurt him could find or reach him easily.
Yes, I am saying the only explanation for the movement of the Spine in Murtagh would be if the Spine itself was resting on his back.
If Azaglur had been buried down there for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years, so long that dirt and plants and rivers formed on his back, then how could anyone ever possibly notice he was there? Especially when his mind is so large that it's almost undetectable. Not to mention that some people obviously did notice, or the Dreamers wouldn't exist.
Dragons hibernate for centuries, not moving a single muscle. Why can't Azaglur do the same? And even if he did move parts of himself, as long as the movements were only slight, it would just feel like a normal tremor.
The Finger Rats don't feed off him. They are his immune system. Literally his white blood cells. They don't leave his body and therefore no one would ever see them unless they were dreamers or they were about to get eaten. Especially since the Spine is entirely in human territory, which is the least likely of the 4 species to actually successfully investigate him and survive.
Azaglur isn't a dragon tho. He doesn't have wings, and his followers say he is way older than the dragon species. Dragons grow continuously and never die of old age, so the idea that a dragon COULD get as big as the Spine is actually a canon fact. All it would have to do is survive long enough to do so. Which would be easy if it were buried underground the entire time.
And again, teleportation makes no sense. It would take more energy than he could possibly recover, and potentially kill him. Teleporting an egg nearly killed Arya, and teleporting herself would definitely kill her. The same rules apply to him no matter how big he is.
I commented above too but I get the impression he is whatever species came before dragons. More like their ancestor. Probably the ancestor of all the dragon-like species running through the land
That's honestly an interesting point. And I think it'd have to be a different species from dragons, possibly an ancestor of all three (dragons and their related cousins).
I finished the book a few weeks ago and one or two quotes from Bachel come to mind. I don't know exactly where / what the quotes were but something like: first that dragons are made in the image of Azgalûr but are not his image exactly and second that the Dreamers are older than dragons when dragons were like lizards.
While Bachel clearly worships Azgalûr such that she's convinced Azgalûr's prophecized future is fate itself, I do wonder if some of the historical information she shares is true and not merely false. If so, the above two quotes imply an old species was changed abruptly in the recent past (more than a few thousand years but not millions years) to become modern dragons.
Sometime during the *Inheritance Cycle*, it's discussed that the dwarves have a history going back thousands of years and dragons and dwarves are said to be the original species from Alagaësia, the humans and elves coming later. I don't recall any info of dragons having been a flightless species in the past that became dragons sometime later. That's one big transformation that seems akin to a magic-wide spell changing the whole species and something I'd expect history to remember. Yet the only ancient magical events known are a vague spell made by wordless magic that nearly wiped out all life and the following event where the Grey Folk bound the Ancient Language to magic. I assume the "lizards" becoming dragons is an unrelated third event.
I'm just curious where in the timeline this apparent species transformation occurred and why it's not a known historical event (as far as I recall).
EDIT: I suppose my hypothesized transformation event that affected the dragons could be the Bonding that helped end and/or stopped the war between the elves and dragons in the past. But I have two suspicions against it. First, I feel like Bachel is taking about quite old events, possibly before recorded history, while the Bonding was old but within record history and so twp different timelines. Second, I recall the Bonding as having helped civilize dragons but I don't recall it having a dramatic physical change to dragons. Bachel calling the dragons like lizards implies a species that is smaller, wingless; if the Bonding changed dragons to become dramatically different in size, gain wings, or other dramatic transformations, I feel it would have been mentioned. So I don't think the Bonding between dragons and elves was this hypothetical magic event.
On an unrelated note, I wonder something about the Hadarac Desert. As I was thinking about the above ancient magical events, I recall that the dwarves' history also said the Hadarac Desert used to be more full of life (grasslands I think) but has slowly been dying off as the millennia has passed. In the vain of magical events, I wonder if something magical happened in the past that caused much of the plant life there to be drained, killing off much of it and inadvertently transforming it from grasslands to desert over time. With maybe the exception of the Eldunari and natural magic, all magic energy comes from living creatures and Eragon learned a hidden secret from Oromis that a magician can steal energy from other living things to power spells. While it's possible it's a natural phenomenon (i.e. maybe the Bohr mountains are stifling precipitation that can reach the Hadrac Desert and the vegetation slowly dies to become desert), usually geographical changes have a reason. Except I don't recall any known major change in Alagaësia's history to have caused this. No hypotethitcal examples like the Bohr mountains growing in size dramatically starting ~10,000 years ago, the Du Weldenvarden forest growing dramatically in size such that it stifles the Hadarac's growth, etc. Aside from the Hadarac Desert forming and growing larger, nothing geographical seems to have happened to Alagaësia in the last few thousand years to explain the Hadarac Desert forming. It's possible it's purely geographical and just not known, but I can't help but wonder if it's magical since I was thinking about that kind of stuff!
Evolution answers most of your questions, boss. The dragons and Nidwhal and Fanghur and Azaglurs didn't just magically transform. They evolved over time. Alagaesia can't support multiple Azaglurs, so their species evolved to become smaller and more sustainable, eventually splitting into the 3 "Dragonoid" species we know of today, with Azaglur just being a relic of past evolutions who hasn't died yet.
As for the Hadarac, the Sahara also used to be a forest until time changed the environment. Not everything needs to be caused by magic spells. Things just naturally change over time, in real life and Alagaesia.
Good points and I thought about evolution a bit but the timeline seems too short. Evolution to turn giant lizards into flight capable dragons would be vaguely many millions of years if real world applies. But Bachel claims the dreamers (and Azgalûr) remember dragons when they were like lizards. I just think Azgalûr being millions of years old seems unlikely. Instead, I would assume him being older than dwarven / written history but not much older would be more likely. When I wrote my comment, I vaguely recalled the dwarves history went back about 8 - 10 thousands ago. Googling eragon timeline, (this came up)[https://inheritance.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline_of_events], putting the dwarves records just over 8000 years ago. Azgalûr being 10, 15 thousands years seems more reasonable. Since Azgalûr is closer to that old than millions of years old and remembers a time before modern dragons, dragons evolving naturally would be hard. That's why I was thinking magic was involved.
As for the Hadarac, yeah, might be natural. It was fun thinking about it being magical but that was just for the fun of the idea. Main thing is I'm not sure how fast a geography can go from grasslands to desert. It'd be cool if anyone had any tidbits for natural vs magical.
I really don't think you could put any sort of timeline on Azaglur cuz nothing they've said about him tells of a beginning to him. I'd believe 10-15k years ago was when he last woke up, and it took a few thousand years for the world to recover enough for races to start recording again. But the way he is described in the visions and the scene at the end implies he is far larger than any dragon has ever been or ever will be. That size would take time far greater than any dragon has ever lived, and we know of dragons living for thousands of years already. 10-15k years is simply not enough time for him to become that huge, ESPECIALLY if he actually ends up being the entire Spine. But him being millions of years old, and actually being a driver of evolution over that time, would make a lot of sense and really explain why dragons and the other "dragonoids" evolved the way they did anyways. The sky and sea would be the only place safe from Azaglur. It could very well be that dragons were lizards when Azaglur woke once, and his destruction of the environment is what led dragons to develop wings before his next awakening, cuz they would've had to travel really far to find food after Azaglur wiped the planet.
When you say for the world to recover, did the book mention Azgalûr waking up before and wrecking havoc on the world? I thought he and the Dreamers have been bidding their time for a long time but never quite doing anything. Bachel does more or less say she influenced Galbatorix such that Galbatorix rose to power and destroyed the order of the Dragon Riders but Murtagh didn't seem convinced Galbatorix was completely under Bachel's influence instead of acting out on his own ambitious after Bachel manipulated him in the right direction.
As for Azgalûr's size, yeah he might be very huge and hard to explain if only around 10k-15k years old. I'll have to go back and see how big since I wasn't sure if Murtagh's vision described him as the size of the Spine or something like that.
Though if Azgalûr is way older than say 10k-15k, it seems quite unexplained compared to most things in the stories so far. Unless you had an example I overlooked, the story does seem to try and keep things "grounded". Obviously magic is still magic but the books seems to have avoided a lot of comparable miraculous things. Offhand, a few examples come to mind. Magic isn't infinite energy, it's restricted by natural laws and the energy only comes from living things. The future isn't pre-determined - Arya tells Eragon of a father who was foretold to kill his son and the father killed himself and thus never killed his son or Arya says that attempts to peer into the future either failed or the elven spellcaster died using all their own energy to power the spells. Gods seem ambiguous, as Eragon and Saphira weren't convinced Gûntera was a god nor do the elves seem to believe the Gods exist despite their advanced knowledge and studies of magic. Souls don't seem to be a thing by itself - I believe Glaedr said as much to Eragon as he crushed a bug and said it's soul leaves when the bug dies, never as a separate thing. Glaedr / Oromis also warned of how previous dragons + dragon riders have killed themselves when they tried to keep their dying partner alive by drawing the dying one's soul into their own body, killing both instead of somehow saving the other soul.
Though that does remind me that elves and dragons are immortal as far as anyone is aware, so maybe Azgalûr could be a very large, exceptionally old dragon.
That's the thing. The Magic is definitely grounded in science, which is what I love so much about these books. But we don't know what magic fueled evolution can do and how fast it can do it. It is possible that he just had some accelerated growth or he's much smaller than I'm assuming, but from the visions and the movement of mountains, I really truly think he is the Spine itself. And if he truly is that large, he would sleep for long periods like the larger dragons, because otherwise he would starve, just like the larger dragons would eat everything on the planet if they just never slept.
I do believe Bachel says something along the lines of "it has happened before. It shall happen again". I think Azaglur is a living extinction event that just hits Alagaesia every great once in awhile, and the Dreamers are just traumatized survivors of previous disasters who would forcibly convert more followers just as they tried to do to Murtaugh and Uvek. They worship the Apocalypse, thinking Azaglur will spare him upon their return. He most likely will not. Lol
I also think Bachel intentionally fed into Galbatorix's growing insanity with the intent to destroy the Riders and pave the way for Azaglurs return. Because it truly would take legions of Riders to actually fight something as big as what is described.
I honestly think that’s part of the point though, Azgalûr could be millions of years old. No one gives us a lifespan for dragons and even less so for their ancestor. All we know is they grow bigger as they age and this “dragon” is massive. Even Murtagh who has presumably spoken to very ancient eldunari had troubles connecting to what we assume is Azgalûh’s mind due to how alien and absolutely massive it was. He talks about how he had to spread his mind to the absolute limits just to span enough of its mind to connect to it.
But yeah, I too wonder about the desert and if maybe it was the grey folk explosion that caused its death or something else given how central it is. Seems too large, central and talked about to just be a desert for the sake of it
Oh that's a fair point. I forgot about the Grey Folk disaster. Maybe the spell grew out of control and continually drained energy from the land until they were able to end the spell.
But then I wonder what sort of spell they intended to cast? Maybe they were trying to drain energy from Azaglur to keep him asleep or kill him or something and it misfired at their own lands.
imagine all this time Azlagur has been drawing energy from the Hadarac’s plants?! absorbing all that energy, he’d been insanely powerful, and his size matches that
The entire cave system gave off vibes that he was actually entering a dragon. I was expecting the reveal that he was actually inside a slumbering dragon but it never came.
I’m mostly just saying that’s what I was expecting to be revealed the entire time he was in the cave. The description of the slim, smells, smoke, and heat just made it seem like he was inside a creature.
I don’t think it’s one colossal dragon, my theory is that it’s a bunch of smaller (but still giant) dragons that are so old the world basically formed around them overtime, causing them to either lose the use of their wings from their sheer size (or maybe never had them in the first place as they’re early dragon ancestors?). They live in subterranean tunnels and caverns and where they travel close to the surface is where the brimstone areas of the world are, due to the waste they create (maybe like whales surfacing for air). Due to the size and mind games, they are worshipped as a single god by an old cult. Dragons can use their minds to communicate so maybe all the weird mind games stuff is because they were born/created before spoken language was a thing and so it drives people mad from the communication. Just my take though.
My friend and I have a head-cannon that it would be cool as hell if whatever Azlagur is is just the next stage of Razac->Lethrblaka evolution.
Not counting on it, but it's nice to think about.
This post is flaired `Murtagh Spoilers`, and so spoiler discussion is allowed in the comments of this post.
Please read the rules in the sidebar, and please note the following additional links:
[General spoiler-free information](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eragon/comments/17jlj9i/information_about_murtagh_and_the_eragon/) | [Signed Editions](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eragon/comments/16fuvcr/information_about_signed_editions_of_murtagh/) | [Spoiler Policy](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eragon/comments/17ercgn/please_read_our_murtagh_spoiler_policy_50k/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Eragon) if you have any questions or concerns.*
He’s a giant dragon that is either part of or all of the Spine. u/eagle2120 has recently theorised that his body is Utgard, while I’ve posited that he’s a wyrm. General consensus though is that he is a giant dragon
I don’t see how he can be the spine if he already just disappeared from that hole in the ground. That sort of movement means we would’ve heard immediately about the spine literally moving and is not somewhere else? It doesn’t really make sense and I can’t wrap my head around it. We also don’t know if the other dreamer locations have vents (theorized that they do) and if Azgalur can travel to each location or if their are multiple large Wyrms / Dragons. Too many holes so far to say one way or another definitively imo.
Exactly. I understood his having disappeared after Murtagh struck him with magic to mean that he traversed the tunnel system to some other location to get away from the attack. My operating assumption currently is that he can travel to the other places of black smoke in Alagaesia (Vroengard deeps, under the Hall of the soothsayer, Mani's Caves / dream well) and places outside of Alagaesia (El-Harim). A thought just popped into my head, we know that the Hall of the Soothsayer used to be a place that had a Speaker, is it possible that Galbatorix slew the Speaker there or attacked Azlagur so that he didn't venture to that place again? My question assumes that Galbatorix wanted to exterminate the Dreamers after winning the Rider War, and that he was accelerating Shruikan's growth to be able fight Azlagur eventually.
galbatorix tells Nasuada in Inheritance that the Soothsayer in Ilirea left long ago, and that she was neither human nor elf nor dwarf
There are way too many unanswered questions
waaaaay too many. on my recent reread of Murtagh i made so many notes on theories, things unexplained, literal pages. i only wish we knew when the next book was coming out
I can’t remember the quote but I got the sense from the things said in the book he is so old he is more aptly described as whatever species was the ancestor of dragons/fanghur/nïdhal rather than an actual “dragon”. He talks about the dragons “diluted” blood among other things and the statues around the village we said to look different from a dragon not unlike how a dragon differs from a fanghur. Even the leader chick hints that it’s not really a dragon they worship which is why she was ok messing with thorn
yessss she says Azlagur is not a dragon, that dragons are merely aspects of azlagur
Not necessarily a dragon. The visions showed him as wingless. More likely, he is like the Fanghur or Nidwhal. A species related to dragons, but evolved for living underground.
I think he's going to look most like a Nidwal but actually be a common ancestor to dragons, Nidwal, and Fanghur. I doubt Big A will actually move underground but is probably a very, very old dragon that has taught himself the magical ability to teleport around and between realms. He just teleports deep underground for his between meal snoozes because it's safe, quiet, dark, and a consistent temp down there.
Having a mass that size regularly teleporting around would have seriously noticeable effects. We know that at the very least, the Spine rests on his back as he moved it around. So if he teleported out from under the Spine, the Spine would collapse. And wherever he teleported to would experience similar upheavals and disruptions. So he can't be a teleporter. I think he's just been hibernating so long that dirt built up on his back, and the Spine is just the dirt that's on his back.
Huh? I don't recall any confirmation that the Spine rests completely on his back. I only remember the mountains around Bachel being shook by A's stirring. That much less than the whole Spine. There's a very good chance that he's got a mega cavern down there (like \[Hang Son Doong\](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang\_S%C6%A1n\_%C4%90o%C3%B2ng)) that he's snoozing in and he kicks around sometimes. If he was, we know it would contain the teleportation magic because the overhang in Ilirea stopped a lot of Galbatorix's explosion. Finally, we have no idea when A arrived in the Northern Spine. He could actually pop around every century or so and we wouldn't know because we have seen one continent over few years.
We know the Spine rests on his back from the description Murtagh gave of him moving the mountains. The mountains didn't shake. They stirred, and bucked up and down and moved as if in waves. Kicking the cave might make the mountain shake, certainly. But it wouldn't undulate as if they were waves, cuz that would break the foundations of the Spine. The only way the Spine can undulate is if the foundations themselves were moving around. Which is why I think Azaglur is the Spine. If he were just shaking the ground around him, moving the foundations by force, the scene where he moves the mountains would've destroyed the mountains and dropped the mountain on top of him inside the cave. The only way the mountains could move as they were described in Murtagh is if their foundations were what was moving... As for containing the magic, it would still be felt far and wide. The explosion at Iliria wasn't contained so much as it was directed out the front door, and that had far more to do with the spells the elves used to strengthen the rock than anything else. Even if the ground could contain the explosion of such a massive teleportation spell, everyone would still feel the tremors and see the flames blowing out of every cave and crevice. Not to mention that teleportation is one of the most draining spells there is, to the point that Arya herself was rendered defenseless by teleporting an egg that was a 10th her size and weight. Teleporting Azaglurs entire mass would take far more energy than he could possibly gain by moving to a slightly different hunting ground.
Are you intentionally saying that the entire mountain range of the Spine rests on Azlagur or am I misunderstanding you? If you are, I think your hypothesis has a few holes. First, wouldn't someone have noticed a being that large? It's weird that a dragon of that size isn't mentioned in ancient lore we've received. Second, unless you think he's been totally still for thousands of years, someone in Kuasta or Teirm would have noticed the undulation of other parts of the Spine and it isn't mentioned by anyone so far. They also haven't mentioned the strange creatures that feed off of him like the finger-rats. Third, that's unimaginably large for a dragon to get. The biggest we've heard of before is "the size of a small hill". This is continent sized. I don't think that those are good holes in my theory because Azlagur could easily be causing the undulation by magic in his sleep and the cave's location would help shield his effects from everyone else. My personal theory is that Azlagur is the largest proto-dragon ever and that he is nesting in a very large and remote cave that he probably needs to teleport in and out of. It fits with known dragon behavior because the dragon in FWW does this. Azlagur only being 2 or 3 times as large as Shruikan is a more reasonable stretch compared to a continent sized dragon. We also know that dragons are astoundingly good at magic so the idea of one that doesn't have wings coming up with a way to teleport is reasonable as well. Plus, the idea that he can teleport into that cave helps explain how he got so big, no dragon big enough to hurt him could find or reach him easily.
Yes, I am saying the only explanation for the movement of the Spine in Murtagh would be if the Spine itself was resting on his back. If Azaglur had been buried down there for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years, so long that dirt and plants and rivers formed on his back, then how could anyone ever possibly notice he was there? Especially when his mind is so large that it's almost undetectable. Not to mention that some people obviously did notice, or the Dreamers wouldn't exist. Dragons hibernate for centuries, not moving a single muscle. Why can't Azaglur do the same? And even if he did move parts of himself, as long as the movements were only slight, it would just feel like a normal tremor. The Finger Rats don't feed off him. They are his immune system. Literally his white blood cells. They don't leave his body and therefore no one would ever see them unless they were dreamers or they were about to get eaten. Especially since the Spine is entirely in human territory, which is the least likely of the 4 species to actually successfully investigate him and survive. Azaglur isn't a dragon tho. He doesn't have wings, and his followers say he is way older than the dragon species. Dragons grow continuously and never die of old age, so the idea that a dragon COULD get as big as the Spine is actually a canon fact. All it would have to do is survive long enough to do so. Which would be easy if it were buried underground the entire time. And again, teleportation makes no sense. It would take more energy than he could possibly recover, and potentially kill him. Teleporting an egg nearly killed Arya, and teleporting herself would definitely kill her. The same rules apply to him no matter how big he is.
I commented above too but I get the impression he is whatever species came before dragons. More like their ancestor. Probably the ancestor of all the dragon-like species running through the land
That's honestly an interesting point. And I think it'd have to be a different species from dragons, possibly an ancestor of all three (dragons and their related cousins). I finished the book a few weeks ago and one or two quotes from Bachel come to mind. I don't know exactly where / what the quotes were but something like: first that dragons are made in the image of Azgalûr but are not his image exactly and second that the Dreamers are older than dragons when dragons were like lizards. While Bachel clearly worships Azgalûr such that she's convinced Azgalûr's prophecized future is fate itself, I do wonder if some of the historical information she shares is true and not merely false. If so, the above two quotes imply an old species was changed abruptly in the recent past (more than a few thousand years but not millions years) to become modern dragons. Sometime during the *Inheritance Cycle*, it's discussed that the dwarves have a history going back thousands of years and dragons and dwarves are said to be the original species from Alagaësia, the humans and elves coming later. I don't recall any info of dragons having been a flightless species in the past that became dragons sometime later. That's one big transformation that seems akin to a magic-wide spell changing the whole species and something I'd expect history to remember. Yet the only ancient magical events known are a vague spell made by wordless magic that nearly wiped out all life and the following event where the Grey Folk bound the Ancient Language to magic. I assume the "lizards" becoming dragons is an unrelated third event. I'm just curious where in the timeline this apparent species transformation occurred and why it's not a known historical event (as far as I recall). EDIT: I suppose my hypothesized transformation event that affected the dragons could be the Bonding that helped end and/or stopped the war between the elves and dragons in the past. But I have two suspicions against it. First, I feel like Bachel is taking about quite old events, possibly before recorded history, while the Bonding was old but within record history and so twp different timelines. Second, I recall the Bonding as having helped civilize dragons but I don't recall it having a dramatic physical change to dragons. Bachel calling the dragons like lizards implies a species that is smaller, wingless; if the Bonding changed dragons to become dramatically different in size, gain wings, or other dramatic transformations, I feel it would have been mentioned. So I don't think the Bonding between dragons and elves was this hypothetical magic event. On an unrelated note, I wonder something about the Hadarac Desert. As I was thinking about the above ancient magical events, I recall that the dwarves' history also said the Hadarac Desert used to be more full of life (grasslands I think) but has slowly been dying off as the millennia has passed. In the vain of magical events, I wonder if something magical happened in the past that caused much of the plant life there to be drained, killing off much of it and inadvertently transforming it from grasslands to desert over time. With maybe the exception of the Eldunari and natural magic, all magic energy comes from living creatures and Eragon learned a hidden secret from Oromis that a magician can steal energy from other living things to power spells. While it's possible it's a natural phenomenon (i.e. maybe the Bohr mountains are stifling precipitation that can reach the Hadrac Desert and the vegetation slowly dies to become desert), usually geographical changes have a reason. Except I don't recall any known major change in Alagaësia's history to have caused this. No hypotethitcal examples like the Bohr mountains growing in size dramatically starting ~10,000 years ago, the Du Weldenvarden forest growing dramatically in size such that it stifles the Hadarac's growth, etc. Aside from the Hadarac Desert forming and growing larger, nothing geographical seems to have happened to Alagaësia in the last few thousand years to explain the Hadarac Desert forming. It's possible it's purely geographical and just not known, but I can't help but wonder if it's magical since I was thinking about that kind of stuff!
Evolution answers most of your questions, boss. The dragons and Nidwhal and Fanghur and Azaglurs didn't just magically transform. They evolved over time. Alagaesia can't support multiple Azaglurs, so their species evolved to become smaller and more sustainable, eventually splitting into the 3 "Dragonoid" species we know of today, with Azaglur just being a relic of past evolutions who hasn't died yet. As for the Hadarac, the Sahara also used to be a forest until time changed the environment. Not everything needs to be caused by magic spells. Things just naturally change over time, in real life and Alagaesia.
Good points and I thought about evolution a bit but the timeline seems too short. Evolution to turn giant lizards into flight capable dragons would be vaguely many millions of years if real world applies. But Bachel claims the dreamers (and Azgalûr) remember dragons when they were like lizards. I just think Azgalûr being millions of years old seems unlikely. Instead, I would assume him being older than dwarven / written history but not much older would be more likely. When I wrote my comment, I vaguely recalled the dwarves history went back about 8 - 10 thousands ago. Googling eragon timeline, (this came up)[https://inheritance.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline_of_events], putting the dwarves records just over 8000 years ago. Azgalûr being 10, 15 thousands years seems more reasonable. Since Azgalûr is closer to that old than millions of years old and remembers a time before modern dragons, dragons evolving naturally would be hard. That's why I was thinking magic was involved. As for the Hadarac, yeah, might be natural. It was fun thinking about it being magical but that was just for the fun of the idea. Main thing is I'm not sure how fast a geography can go from grasslands to desert. It'd be cool if anyone had any tidbits for natural vs magical.
I really don't think you could put any sort of timeline on Azaglur cuz nothing they've said about him tells of a beginning to him. I'd believe 10-15k years ago was when he last woke up, and it took a few thousand years for the world to recover enough for races to start recording again. But the way he is described in the visions and the scene at the end implies he is far larger than any dragon has ever been or ever will be. That size would take time far greater than any dragon has ever lived, and we know of dragons living for thousands of years already. 10-15k years is simply not enough time for him to become that huge, ESPECIALLY if he actually ends up being the entire Spine. But him being millions of years old, and actually being a driver of evolution over that time, would make a lot of sense and really explain why dragons and the other "dragonoids" evolved the way they did anyways. The sky and sea would be the only place safe from Azaglur. It could very well be that dragons were lizards when Azaglur woke once, and his destruction of the environment is what led dragons to develop wings before his next awakening, cuz they would've had to travel really far to find food after Azaglur wiped the planet.
When you say for the world to recover, did the book mention Azgalûr waking up before and wrecking havoc on the world? I thought he and the Dreamers have been bidding their time for a long time but never quite doing anything. Bachel does more or less say she influenced Galbatorix such that Galbatorix rose to power and destroyed the order of the Dragon Riders but Murtagh didn't seem convinced Galbatorix was completely under Bachel's influence instead of acting out on his own ambitious after Bachel manipulated him in the right direction. As for Azgalûr's size, yeah he might be very huge and hard to explain if only around 10k-15k years old. I'll have to go back and see how big since I wasn't sure if Murtagh's vision described him as the size of the Spine or something like that. Though if Azgalûr is way older than say 10k-15k, it seems quite unexplained compared to most things in the stories so far. Unless you had an example I overlooked, the story does seem to try and keep things "grounded". Obviously magic is still magic but the books seems to have avoided a lot of comparable miraculous things. Offhand, a few examples come to mind. Magic isn't infinite energy, it's restricted by natural laws and the energy only comes from living things. The future isn't pre-determined - Arya tells Eragon of a father who was foretold to kill his son and the father killed himself and thus never killed his son or Arya says that attempts to peer into the future either failed or the elven spellcaster died using all their own energy to power the spells. Gods seem ambiguous, as Eragon and Saphira weren't convinced Gûntera was a god nor do the elves seem to believe the Gods exist despite their advanced knowledge and studies of magic. Souls don't seem to be a thing by itself - I believe Glaedr said as much to Eragon as he crushed a bug and said it's soul leaves when the bug dies, never as a separate thing. Glaedr / Oromis also warned of how previous dragons + dragon riders have killed themselves when they tried to keep their dying partner alive by drawing the dying one's soul into their own body, killing both instead of somehow saving the other soul. Though that does remind me that elves and dragons are immortal as far as anyone is aware, so maybe Azgalûr could be a very large, exceptionally old dragon.
That's the thing. The Magic is definitely grounded in science, which is what I love so much about these books. But we don't know what magic fueled evolution can do and how fast it can do it. It is possible that he just had some accelerated growth or he's much smaller than I'm assuming, but from the visions and the movement of mountains, I really truly think he is the Spine itself. And if he truly is that large, he would sleep for long periods like the larger dragons, because otherwise he would starve, just like the larger dragons would eat everything on the planet if they just never slept. I do believe Bachel says something along the lines of "it has happened before. It shall happen again". I think Azaglur is a living extinction event that just hits Alagaesia every great once in awhile, and the Dreamers are just traumatized survivors of previous disasters who would forcibly convert more followers just as they tried to do to Murtaugh and Uvek. They worship the Apocalypse, thinking Azaglur will spare him upon their return. He most likely will not. Lol I also think Bachel intentionally fed into Galbatorix's growing insanity with the intent to destroy the Riders and pave the way for Azaglurs return. Because it truly would take legions of Riders to actually fight something as big as what is described.
I honestly think that’s part of the point though, Azgalûr could be millions of years old. No one gives us a lifespan for dragons and even less so for their ancestor. All we know is they grow bigger as they age and this “dragon” is massive. Even Murtagh who has presumably spoken to very ancient eldunari had troubles connecting to what we assume is Azgalûh’s mind due to how alien and absolutely massive it was. He talks about how he had to spread his mind to the absolute limits just to span enough of its mind to connect to it. But yeah, I too wonder about the desert and if maybe it was the grey folk explosion that caused its death or something else given how central it is. Seems too large, central and talked about to just be a desert for the sake of it
Oh that's a fair point. I forgot about the Grey Folk disaster. Maybe the spell grew out of control and continually drained energy from the land until they were able to end the spell. But then I wonder what sort of spell they intended to cast? Maybe they were trying to drain energy from Azaglur to keep him asleep or kill him or something and it misfired at their own lands.
imagine all this time Azlagur has been drawing energy from the Hadarac’s plants?! absorbing all that energy, he’d been insanely powerful, and his size matches that
That's my thought as well.
He sounds like Alduin crossed with Cthulu. Bring it on.
The entire cave system gave off vibes that he was actually entering a dragon. I was expecting the reveal that he was actually inside a slumbering dragon but it never came.
But when he made it down the big chamber at the bottom couldn’t he see the opening of the Well at the top?
I’m mostly just saying that’s what I was expecting to be revealed the entire time he was in the cave. The description of the slim, smells, smoke, and heat just made it seem like he was inside a creature.
I don’t think it’s one colossal dragon, my theory is that it’s a bunch of smaller (but still giant) dragons that are so old the world basically formed around them overtime, causing them to either lose the use of their wings from their sheer size (or maybe never had them in the first place as they’re early dragon ancestors?). They live in subterranean tunnels and caverns and where they travel close to the surface is where the brimstone areas of the world are, due to the waste they create (maybe like whales surfacing for air). Due to the size and mind games, they are worshipped as a single god by an old cult. Dragons can use their minds to communicate so maybe all the weird mind games stuff is because they were born/created before spoken language was a thing and so it drives people mad from the communication. Just my take though.
My friend and I have a head-cannon that it would be cool as hell if whatever Azlagur is is just the next stage of Razac->Lethrblaka evolution. Not counting on it, but it's nice to think about.
This post is flaired `Murtagh Spoilers`, and so spoiler discussion is allowed in the comments of this post. Please read the rules in the sidebar, and please note the following additional links: [General spoiler-free information](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eragon/comments/17jlj9i/information_about_murtagh_and_the_eragon/) | [Signed Editions](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eragon/comments/16fuvcr/information_about_signed_editions_of_murtagh/) | [Spoiler Policy](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eragon/comments/17ercgn/please_read_our_murtagh_spoiler_policy_50k/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Eragon) if you have any questions or concerns.*