Eragon

Started by Scales November 2nd, 2007 2:43 PM
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Scales

Man of Infinite Jest

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Posted July 1st, 2010
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Okay ive read Eragon and Eldest and cannot stress on how unoriginal it is. Here is a list of the most noticable unoriginal things I have put on a few other forums
Spoiler:

Im rereading Eragon again. I have to say I cannot finish reading one chapter without finding something unoriginal that I have seen in other series or movie. Eragon is the main reason I am writing a book. So that I can show people what true originality is. In my opinion Eragon is like someone writing a new lord of the rings book that has a starwars plot. Thats all it is. Since Star wars movies have died already Eragon is just exploiting people's ignorance. Eragon is just a fantasy version of starwars with some other fantasy put in there in places. Since Starwars has died its just a revival of starwars with a new setting. Next people are going to make a fantasy Halo and fantasy Evil dead

What makes a really good book is a plot twist at the end. Eldest had a plot twist at the end. However it was like Empire strikes back's plot twist. I was expecting that from the first chapter of it. That his "Brother" would appear and a whole luke I am your father scene would open up.

Plus I hated how unrealistic the character Eragon was. Firstly you never saw any negative traits except that he argued with Saphira and Brom every so often. Plus he only left Carvahall for like 3 months and then all of the sudden he becomes this elven knight that is able to kill entire armies? Also one thing I hated was that they godmodded his magic with the ability to just sever people's heads with magic. Now we find that armies need magicians to protect them. If you recall Brom said in the first book that "the ability to use magic was rare nowadays." Then all of the sudden we have Eragon going up against hundreds of people and dozens of magicians. So much for the rarity of magic.

Plus they added a leather clad elf that Eragon is completely in love with. Originality much? It would have made more sense if Eragon didn't fall in love. He is acting more like Frodo and Luke Skywalker by the second.

The dragon riders were exactly like the jedi in Starwars. A secret order that only had specific people in it. They also had a special advantage over their enemies. EX: riders - dragons. Jedi knights - force. Let me see... Galbatorix is exactly like Palpatine. Especially since he is now emperor.

I can rant on for hours on end about how unoriginal Eragon is. I would not recommend this series to another person. I could probably print like 2 dozen pages on what is unoriginal in Eragon.

The movie was worse. I wouldn't show that to homeless people. I almost cried due to the large scorn it put on the literature. Even the books were 10 times better then that movie. It almost make it even more unoriginal. Christopher Paolini should have written the screenplay. Since if he did the movie would have been much better.

If anyone can tell me anything about Eragon that is original I will be very surprised


Eragon does have a few good traits though. Since he was about 15 when he started writing it which is very young for a writer. Plus the fact that it has a "Resonably good" Yet unoriginal plot. I would have recommended that the Author worked on his character's more and added more plot twists. Since the story only had like 2 plot twists. I would also recommend that he make more realistic characters like I mentioned above.

Anyway your thoughts and critisisms on Eragon and his next book? Ive heard that he is creating two more books. That means three more movies and 6 more hours of torture

Cherrim

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I read the first book and was largely unimpressed. My brother loved it but... by the end, it was just torture to read. I found I didn't care about what happened to any of the characters and thus read the ending so fast that I don't remember what happened. Nor do I care. :P

I know a lot of people like it, and maybe I hated it because I'm not a fantasy fan in the least, but... yeah. Fact still remains that I hated it. XD;


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Anti

return of the king

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I read the first book and was largely unimpressed. My brother loved it but... by the end, it was just torture to read. I found I didn't care about what happened to any of the characters and thus read the ending so fast that I don't remember what happened. Nor do I care. :P

I know a lot of people like it, and maybe I hated it because I'm not a fantasy fan in the least, but... yeah. Fact still remains that I hated it. XD;
I'm surprised so many people agree. Everybody in my class about 3 years back...they were giving it tremendously high praise. I read it in a couple of weeks and found it average. I didn't hate it, but it really wasn't so good. the movie was even worse.
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by fire be P U R G E D

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Posted October 26th, 2013
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I'm surprised so many people agree. Everybody in my class about 3 years back...they were giving it tremendously high praise. I read it in a couple of weeks and found it average. I didn't hate it, but it really wasn't so good. the movie was even worse.
I haven't real LotR and I don't like Star Wars so I thought it was good. But then I saw the movie, and that made me a hater. But still, I'm going to read the third book when it comes out, which is fall of 2008. And Paolini obviously doesn't know what a trilogy is since he announced that there'll be a fourth book.


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txteclipse

The Last

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Inheritance has one very important thing that had not been done before: the relationship between Eragon and Saphira.

Sure, Anne McCaphrey had human-dragon relationships, but they seemed slightly forced to me, as though the two species were not really meant to be compatible.

I do not find any trace of this in the Inheritance series. Eragon and Saphira are almost like brother and sister in the ways that they respond to each other. It flows very well, and it's the primary reason I love the books so dearly. You have this fifteen-year-old boy, and he forges a very deep bond to a monstrous, fire breathing creature of doom and destruction. One that also has a soul, emotions, feelings, and needs. It's a great concept, and it works.

As for the trilogy becoming a quadrilogy, I say bravo. He's breaking boundaries people have been too afraid to break in the past. If he manages to introduce more interesting material and make each installment better than the last, I say go for it.

Scales

Man of Infinite Jest

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Inheritance has one very important thing that had not been done before: the relationship between Eragon and Saphira.

Sure, Anne McCaphrey had human-dragon relationships, but they seemed slightly forced to me, as though the two species were not really meant to be compatible.

I do not find any trace of this in the Inheritance series. Eragon and Saphira are almost like brother and sister in the ways that they respond to each other. It flows very well, and it's the primary reason I love the books so dearly. You have this fifteen-year-old boy, and he forges a very deep bond to a monstrous, fire breathing creature of doom and destruction. One that also has a soul, emotions, feelings, and needs. It's a great concept, and it works.

As for the trilogy becoming a quadrilogy, I say bravo. He's breaking boundaries people have been too afraid to break in the past. If he manages to introduce more interesting material and make each installment better than the last, I say go for it.
There have been in novels human animal or humans with other human relationships that have been way stronger then the bond between Saphira and Eragon Even going the way of sacrifice, love, even suicide. The human dragon relationship is just adapting it to fit the plot. Plus the only reason Saphira responds to Eragon so well is because Eragon hatched her and is the only person who could hatch her. If you noticed she didn't relate as well with other people as she did Eragon.

Plus Christopher Paolini already explained that he renamed it to the inheritance cycle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inheritance_Trilogy

I am so glad I took a course in Criticism for this kind of thing. Eragon has been the easiest to Criticize so far

Anyway if you think that breaking boundaries means creating a new book in a trilogy that isn't a very good way to phrase it. A better way to phrase it is he is trying to add a new book in a not very well planned trilogy. The only reason he is creating 4 books is because the third one would be to big to fit everything

Plus you don't really need to be into Starwars. Since I never finished LoTR since I already knew the plot. But if you read in between the lines and look at the book logically you can tell that Christopher Paolini left lots of blanks. Like how Eragon can disarm Brom after training with him for like 3 weeks and he training his entire life. Or how he can defeat Murtagh when he was trained under a very great sword master for a large portion of his life.

Like I wrote above what you can tell about a good author is he writes his screenplays. Like how Stephan king had the courage to sue the producers of the Shining for making the movie really different from the book. If Christopher Paolini wants to attract a very broad audience like LoTR did he needs to write his screenplay for Eldest or else Hollywood is going to botch that up as well

Anyway one of the most unoriginal things (Like I said above) Is how perfect Eragon is. From what I have seen Eragon has absolutely no bad traits. Which means it is not a very well developed Protagonist. Since it is very unrealistic that someone would have done all thing and not have done a single selfish act, felt greed, got angry at someone and takes it out on someone else. I mean who in their right minds would not have sworn at Murtagh for taking Zar'roc from you. Eragon just lay there and let Murtagh take it while pleading for him not to kill him. Plus he never argues with Saphira and the only fight I ever saw him get into with another character was in the first book when Murtagh kept egging him on and Saphira stopped them from fighting.

I know I should probably create some sort of 5 page report on this thing. But I have read many sci-fi short stories, novels and fantasy short stories and novels. I dislike Eragon's copying of previous plot scenarios. Most of which is Starwars and LoTR. If you believe that Eragon has not un originally copied off star wars and LoTR please say so.

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chelia.blendy

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...Eragon isn't "perfect", he's made multiple mistakes to suggest some of his flaws. Hell, he tends to let his emotions get the better of his actions in the first book, and there wasn't exactly a lot of Eragon in the second book that wasn't training in which any negative characteristics could be shown.

Funny that you used a "fantasy Halo" as an example of something that could be unoriginal. Halo is unoriginal to begin with, along with 95% of RPs on PC, but that's getting off topic.

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txteclipse

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...Eragon isn't "perfect", he's made multiple mistakes to suggest some of his flaws. Hell, he tends to let his emotions get the better of his actions in the first book, and there wasn't exactly a lot of Eragon in the second book that wasn't training in which any negative characteristics could be shown.

Funny that you used a "fantasy Halo" as an example of something that could be unoriginal. Halo is unoriginal to begin with, along with 95% of RPs on PC, but that's getting off topic.
Thank you. Was just about to say that.

Sammi

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Eragon does have a few good traits though. Since he was about 15 when he started writing it which is very young for a writer. Plus the fact that it has a "Resonably good" Yet unoriginal plot. I would have recommended that the Author worked on his character's more and added more plot twists. Since the story only had like 2 plot twists. I would also recommend that he make more realistic characters like I mentioned above.

Anyway your thoughts and critisisms on Eragon and his next book? Ive heard that he is creating two more books. That means three more movies and 6 more hours of torture
The fact that he stared writing it at fifteen isn't impressive. I started writing stories somewhat seriously in eighth grade. I was about thirteen at the time. In addition, the story I'm writing now? It's loosely based off of fanfiction I started writing at fourteen.

Perhaps you can say that his writing style and the grasp for the plot was good for a fifteen year old, even if it's clichéd. I know my writing wasn't anywhere near as good at fifteen. But then again, you can probably find teenagers that age better than him.

And from what I understand, he was rather young when it was published, but it started out with his parents' publishing company. Granted, they probably wouldn't have published it if it were complete trash, son or not, but they were probably a tad biased at the same time. Yes, it was published by another company after that, but I wonder if he would've gotten it out so soon if he had gone somewhere else.

I found Eragon and Eldest oddly interesting when I read them. I think it's a lack of reading that got to me, though; I haven't read much lately, and what I have read has been force-fed to me via class. It's hard to get into a book when you know you HAVE to read it in a certain period of time, and I just don't know what I should read anymore. @[email protected];; That, and I'm a ditz and didn't realize "hey, this sounds like something I've read before..." until I read all the criticism on the 'net, not to mention I read fast anyway... Haha, I lose. XD;

I'll give the next book a try, but after what I've heard, I'm not sure if I'll enjoy it as much. I'll keep my mind open, though. I haven't re-read the books since I read all the criticism of it on the Internet. I hope he improves.

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Scales

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The fact that he stared writing it at fifteen isn't impressive. I started writing stories somewhat seriously in eighth grade. I was about thirteen at the time. In addition, the story I'm writing now? It's loosely based off of fanfiction I started writing at fourteen.

Perhaps you can say that his writing style and the grasp for the plot was good for a fifteen year old, even if it's clichéd. I know my writing wasn't anywhere near as good at fifteen. But then again, you can probably find teenagers that age better than him.

And from what I understand, he was rather young when it was published, but it started out with his parents' publishing company. Granted, they probably wouldn't have published it if it were complete trash, son or not, but they were probably a tad biased at the same time. Yes, it was published by another company after that, but I wonder if he would've gotten it out so soon if he had gone somewhere else.

I haven't re-read the books since I read all the criticism of it on the Internet. I hope he improves.
I meant that he wrote it and published it shortly afterwards. Thats what I meant. Anyway I would recommend re-reading the books in between the lines since there are a lot of plot holes and cliche'd characters
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My mother bought the book for me because Paolini was a young writer, and she thought I could use a better role model for being an author than the one I had/have now. It took me a few months after I received the book to actually read it, since I was reading other books at the time. When I finally did read Eragon, I had to force myself to get through it. Now, I don't remember a single thing that happened in that book, aside from the fact that there was a dragon in it.

I'm a fantasy fan. You'll find me with a DragonLance book sometimes, when I'm not reading science fiction. So it wasn't as if Eragon was difficult to read because of the genre. I'm used to books about dragons.

It was Paolini's writing style that killed it for me. The fact that everything was so dryly described annoyed me. Why tell us how Eragon felt when Paolini could have just showed it? Then there was the matter of the purple prose.

Eragon, I believe from what I remember and what critics have said, was shown to be a perfect character. He's not all that developed; all bad characters hate him and all good characters like him, no matter what; and he can master any difficult task in a matter of days. (But as I said before, I don't remember much of the books, except for what excerpts critics have posted, so I might be wrong.)

There were other inconsistencies with just the plot. Like how can Eragon fight comfortably with a sword that's nearly the same size he is? How can horses run at a full gallop all night and be ready to go the next morning? How can a medieval butcher shop be clean?

Eragon was only wide-streamed published because the publishing companies thought that since Paolini was a young writer, the books would sell. It worked. But hey, the books are popular enough that young children are reading it, and that's always a plus. Okay, not always. There are exceptions, but don't ask about that. Pages-long rants would follow. ^^

Now I feel like I overstepped my boundaries here. Sorry if I come off as rude in any way. It's just that I was rereading an argument I entered about these books elsewhere, and the posts were heated. I tried to tone it down here.

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Scales

Man of Infinite Jest

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My mother bought the book for me because Paolini was a young writer, and she thought I could use a better role model for being an author than the one I had/have now. It took me a few months after I received the book to actually read it, since I was reading other books at the time. When I finally did read Eragon, I had to force myself to get through it. Now, I don't remember a single thing that happened in that book, aside from the fact that there was a dragon in it.

I'm a fantasy fan. You'll find me with a DragonLance book sometimes, when I'm not reading science fiction. So it wasn't as if Eragon was difficult to read because of the genre. I'm used to books about dragons.

It was Paolini's writing style that killed it for me. The fact that everything was so dryly described annoyed me. Why tell us how Eragon felt when Paolini could have just showed it? Then there was the matter of the purple prose.

Eragon, I believe from what I remember and what critics have said, was shown to be a perfect character. He's not all that developed; all bad characters hate him and all good characters like him, no matter what; and he can master any difficult task in a matter of days. (But as I said before, I don't remember much of the books, except for what excerpts critics have posted, so I might be wrong.)

There were other inconsistencies with just the plot. Like how can Eragon fight comfortably with a sword that's nearly the same size he is? How can horses run at a full gallop all night and be ready to go the next morning? How can a medieval butcher shop be clean?

Eragon was only wide-streamed published because the publishing companies thought that since Paolini was a young writer, the books would sell. It worked. But hey, the books are popular enough that young children are reading it, and that's always a plus. Okay, not always. There are exceptions, but don't ask about that. Pages-long rants would follow. ^^

Now I feel like I overstepped my boundaries here. Sorry if I come off as rude in any way. It's just that I was rereading an argument I entered about these books elsewhere, and the posts were heated. I tried to tone it down here.
thats a lot of what I said. I am glad there are people who agree.

Anyway Eragon also reminds me of a few dragonlance novels. I forgot to include Paolini's writing style in my critiscms. If you notice with JK Rowling she explains everything in a very long and more detailed way which makes it more interesting. Eragon summerised a long battle in one paragraph