i read the eragon series in a week
here's what I learned (nothing)
You have Eragon to thank for my loud critical opinions and the voice you hear in your head every time you open a book (I can only assume I follow you everywhere). I read this as a child, likely in elementary or middle school, and while I devoured the four-book series and waited impatiently for each new novel to come out, after finishing it all, I sort of … didn’t like it! Some people are born haters.
I reference Eragon as a joke in my daily life from time to time. I will freely acknowledge, after FINALLY having seen The Lord of the Rings (I took forever to watch it because I had this crazy idea that I’d read the books first. lol, big dreams), that basically every fantasy novel and movie follows its structure beat for beat. I have genuinely no issue with that because, as I’ve said here before, all art is inspired by other art. Art would not exist without the art that came before it, minus, I suppose, the first ever piece of art that someone just came up with, but even then, I figure someone else was thinking of the same idea at the same time because none of us are really THAT special.
All that being said, the funniest and most egregious memory I have of Eragon’s sins is that it shares so many VERY SPECIFIC plot points with Star Wars. Obviously, LOTR too (Aragorn to Eragon?!?!?! you’re not even trying!!!), but the Star Wars connections are, like, ridiculously particular (spoilers obviously because I’m breaking it down right now):
Eragon is an orphan raised by his aunt and uncle (Luke, Uncle Owen, Aunt Beru)
Eragon finds a dragon egg and all its magic (Luke buys R2 and C3PO) and it hatches to become his dragon named Saphira
the EMPIRE is after this dragon egg
the empire burns down Eragon’s family farm and kills his uncle
Eragon runs away with a wise sage (Brom) who is basically Obi-Wan so he can learn to become a Dragon Rider
the Dragon Riders were exterminated a century ago by an evil Rider named Gallbatorix (Palpatine turned and killed the Jedi tho I forget if the sith were jedis who like went bad or if they were always their own thing…even if that’s the case Gallbatorix has a Darth Vader figure with him who helps him kill everyone)
Eragon and Brom go on a journey
Brom dies saving Eragon
How could I fucking forget that part of their mission is to RESCUE a PRINCESS taken captive by the EMPIRE who was responsible for getting the egg to Eragon. he has a weird crush on her but at least they’re not related
Eragon joins the Varden (rebel alliance) and they have a big battle with the Empire
Eragon goes to the land of the elves to be trained by Oromis, a dragon rider whose existence was kept secret from the Empire (Yoda)
Eragon is impatient and foolish!
Eragon discovers that Morzan, Gallbatorix’s right hand (the Darth Vader of the series) is his FATHER
(This is reversed later when it turns out Brom is his father, but still)
Eragon goes to the lair of weird evil creatures to rescue his cousin’s girlfriend (this takes up the first chunk of Brisingr, much like Jabba’s Palace comprising at least one third of Return of the Jedi, though I have absolutely no problem with that and, in fact, believe it’s one of the finest sequences in film history)
Oromis dies too like Yoda did so now Eragon is for real alone
Morzan’s son Murtaugh is turned by the Empire and becomes the NEW Darth Vader. He tells Eragon that the old Darth Vader was both of their fathers. then he turns on Gallbatorix at the end and helps defeat him. Redemption arc! tho he killed plenty of younglings I’m sure
There is no reason for anyone to care about this besides me, and there’s very little reason for even me to care about this, but I am an incredibly anal person who is obsessed with things like this. Isn’t grad school going to be lucky to have a scholar like me …
AN.Y.WAY. I went to stay at my parents’ house the other week and found two massive volumes of the third and fourth book in the series just hanging out in my bedroom that my mother must have found in a cleaning spree. I thought to myself, jokingly at first, that maybe I should just reread the series while I was there, and the next thing you know, I’m reading Eragon and Eldest in the span of three days off my kindle because they were available on Libby which I can only assume means god knew the path that I needed to take.
I went into this with a few goals. One: to just read something appropriate for a week sleeping in my childhood bedroom. Two: fuck around and challenge my speed reading ability. And three: discover why exactly I had such a love-hate relationship with them as a youth. And what did I discover? I won’t tell you. Just kidding. Look, this might seem incredibly irrelevant, but children’s literature is important, god damn it.
key takeaways
I have to admit, first and foremost, that Paolini is a pretty great writer when it comes to his artistic abilities and general wordsmithing. He becomes even better when you realize that he started writing this at age 15. How the fuck did he know these words? I think the whole series is an incredible accomplishment, especially taking this into account, and I can imagine that you’d learn a lot of literary tricks reading this at a younger age (I certainly did).
Honestly, I didn’t care about the similarities to other media that much. There’s a reason why the structure of going on a journey, acquiring magical abilities, having your old mentor die, splitting up with your friends for different quests, having another old mentor die, then defeating the Empire with the help of a large rebel group is so classic. I’ve moved on — all I want is to read something entertaining that puts its own spin on the formula. I cannot deny that Paolini has some pretty interesting ideas of his own that distinguishes his work from all the others and, in fact, maybe built on a few of those other tropes in a surprising way! So that was a nice surprise. I absolutely remembered why I was super into reading these as a kid despite my later disdain.
Unfortunately, that makes what I’m about to say more difficult and causes me genuine sadness. Eragon and the books that follow are each an empty, hollow shell of what it could have been.
The main issue is the lack of relationships between the characters who should have the most intimate ones, whose relationships form the backbone of the series, and I am referring pretty specifically to the only one that matters: Eragon and his dragon Saphira.
Before you say, “well, it’s a book for kids, how emotionally invested in it could you get?” I will wager that the books that YOU think about most are very likely those you read as a child and young adult! There’s a reason why Harry Potter still has the long-lasting, feverish fandom that very few series can maintain (obviously yer a terf JK, don’t support that transphobic bigoted bitch) — the emotional connections you have to the characters and their journeys. There’s a short young adult series called Dairy Queen, which I literally think about every single day because it taught me shit. I don’t think about Jane Austen every day. I’m sure some people do, like that employee at the Jane Austen museum in Bath dressed up as Mr. Wickham, and that’s great. But you get my point.
Take a portion of the first novel as an example. We’re supposed to see Eragon and Saphira (the dragon) developing a beautiful relationship and indelible connection, becoming one soul. But can we do that when the extent of their conversations is described as such?
The mental contact he shared with the dragon waxed stronger each day. He found that although it did not comprehend words, he could communicate with it through images or emotions. It was an imprecise method, however, and he was often misunderstood. The range at which they could touch each other’s thoughts expanded rapidly.
What were you talking about? What did you say to the dragon? How did you figure out you could do this? What emotions are you conveying to her??? We only see the broad strokes of them bonding when he’s initially hiding her and raising her. It’s not really that intimate or personal. It’s like the author wanted to jump to the point without revealing the journey of getting there. That’s why it’s never fun to skip to the sex scene in a romance book; you need the context! The buildup! (there are no sex scenes in Eragon.)
Another major issue, and the one that contributes most to the lack of relationships: The characters are mere sketches. They are platitudes. The only growth and development is in Eragon’s powers, and that’s not a personality. More characters’ POVs are introduced in the next books, like Eragon’s cousin, Roran, and the leader of the rebellion, Nasuada, which is … fine, but kind of boring and unnecessary, especially as their relevance wanes. And this certainly takes away from learning about the characters that exist and also makes each novel WAYYYYY TOO LONG.
Take, as an example, Arya, the elf princess who Eragon is in love with. We don’t know anything about her actual personality — just that she’s a beautiful, powerful elf. Another point to the “men are incapable of writing women” camp. Roran, Eragon’s cousin, turns into a brutal warrior and persuasive leader over the course of a few pages. Everyone becomes too perfect too fast. Sorry, Nasuada, I’m rooting for you, but this girl is literally seventeen and figured out how to lead a whole ass rebel army in about 48 hours.
You know what else? What the saddest, saddest thing is? A book like this should have some fun involved. As it stands, everyone is so fucking SERIOUS all the time! Everyone just GETS IT! Eragon is SIXTEEN! They’re all talking so solemnly to each other and explaining everything and like telling us how they feel about things instead of showing us. I want to see people in this fantasy world goofing off. Even Eragon and Saphira are always talking about their playful relationship but we never see them actually having fun or connecting like that.
I will now admit that the title of this newsletter is not entirely true (CLICKBAIT!); while I read the first three books in record time (about five days, and they’re LONG), I couldn’t manage to get to Inheritance while I was at my parents’. I brought it back with me, but it’s kind of really fucking boring so far. It’s also the one that I remember the least about, despite it being the conclusion, which speaks to how boring it is. I’ll reread it eventually, I guess, but I got the gist of what I needed based on the first three.
My ultimate conclusion? It doesn’t matter who you rip off as long as you write something entertaining and good. Well, no, don’t plagiarize people’s ideas, obviously, and some authors DO that and piss me off to no end because, like, if you can’t think of an idea of your own, don’t write a book??? What I mean to say is that, in this context, it actually doesn’t matter that much that Eragon is Luke Skywalker. It matters more that I don’t really give a shit about him.
