Eragon: I Liked It

Hey, the 'Urgal' are Blizzard style orcs now.

It's just as well I read the books before I got into fantasy. (I actually got into Dungeons And Dragons just to get an idea of what the basic fantasy setting was supposed to be) I didn't notice how much of a Cliché Storm it was since it was all new to me.

I think the Star Wars thing is overblown.

It's really not. Refer to my post #27 on page two. The plots of the first two books are virtual xeroxes of the first two Star Wars films.

@Enlong: I thought the star wars similarites was a cool thing too. XD. Mainly that I was able to figure it out.

Again, it's unoriginal and the writer's an arrogant douche. Doesn't mean the books have to be unenjoyable.

With the Star Wars thing, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if he just admitted that was an influence and, perhaps, that his story isn't as original as it could be. Then we could enjoy it for what it is: a not super-original fantasy story. There are plenty of those out there.

But instead he insists that he's never seen Star Wars (O RLY?) and that it's totally based on a venerable old storytelling mythos that I seriously doubt he'd heard of when he was 15. If he's going to continually treat his writing as far better than it is, then we're just putting it in its proper place.

Incidentally, Star Wars turns out quite differently when told by someone who hasn't seen it.

To be perfectly fair, Star Wars does pretty closely follow the story of the archetypal hero as seen in the Hero of a Thousand Faces. I find it odd that he says he hadn't watched Star Wars, but then there are kids whose parents raised them to speak Klingon, so...

^^ It can turn out really different if you have watched it, too.

^ That's not even close to being the same thing. Every story ever told follows the Hero's Journey to some degree. The plots of Eragon and Eldest are carbon copies of the plots to A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. The two are not comparable.

And yet, somehow, I find it hard to hate an author who wanted to cameo in The Film of the Book as a Red Shirt who gets decapitated in the final battle.

^I hadn't heard that. Excellent.

And Terry Goodkind claims never to have read Lord Of The Rings, something I would find a lot easier to believe if his character Samuel weren't an expy of Gollum (creepy, semi-human, addicted to a magical artifact now carried by The Hero, with a Verbal Tic about how he wants said artifact back...)

And yet, somehow, I find it hard to hate an author who wanted to cameo in The Film Of The Book as a Red Shirt who gets decapitated in the final battle.

Really? That's pretty cool. He didn't even ask for a speaking role, or something somewhat vaguely important, like what Stan Lee delights in doing?

Eh. My tears of anger at The Movie turned to tears of laughter about 140 seconds in.

What really, really annoys me about Eragon is the lack of research and how everything fucking contradicts. He lives in a house that could NEVER BE GOD DAMN BUILT (seriously, a two story thatched wattle-and-daub house? Come on!) but would probably be expected of the Celtic Peasantry if it could be built.

And then, about five minutes later, he and Brom are riding fucking white stallions all over the place. HOW DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?! Does Paolini not know how fucking much horses cost, never mind stallions?

Then again, they ARE zombie horses capable of running thousands of miles without pausing or anything else.

It's just pure laziness.

Really, it's not so much that Eragon is bad, as much as it is that there are books which give you the same thing it does and are much better.

Seriously, Naomi Novik is still waiting on her movie. WTF?

@Autarch: JRR Tolkien made the same horse mistake, didn't he? Cause I remember CS Lewis made fun of him for it in A Horse And His Boy or something.

I seem to recall there wasn't as much travel by horse in Lo TR as people remember. The Fellowship lost their horses at Moria (and IIRC the frequent stopping to rest in the mountains was a plot point). The only instance of Automaton Horses I can think of is Gandalf's horse, which is probably magical or something.

edited 14th Sep '10 3:04:57 PM by Oonerspism

Shadowfax was King Of Horses.

^^The Hobbit, maybe?

^No, the hobbit was mostly on foot as well since Bilbo was traveling with dwarves who aren't fond of horses.

Yeah, the only thing close to the "iron horse" deal is Rohan but I don't recall that being that bad. The worst offenders would be Shadowfax - the king of horses (who is of course supposed to be better than any other horse). Eomer's horse, Firefoot, was also supposed to be a son or descendant of Shadowfax so he could hold his own, though not as great as the king.

And I think explicitly magical/demigod horses get a free pass. They're like, horsier than three horses combined.

Yeah, in The Hobbit they lost their ponies when the goblins captured them (fairly early in the book).

Narnia even lampshaded and averted Automaton Horses in A Horse And His Boy.

Fantasy is one of those genres which is well-known for lazy writing tropes that all the most famous examples avoid.

Really? That's pretty cool. He didn't even ask for a speaking role, or something somewhat vaguely important, like what Stan Lee delights in doing?

Apparently. He wasn't able to do it in the end, but still.

It would have been cool if the movie didn't suck.

The only reason that movie was any good was Murtagh...

Superhorses of various types are also a staple of mythology, going back to Pegasus, Xanthos and Balios, Arion, etc. They tend to have extraordinary speed; probably extraordinary endurance too.

But they are divine horses: they are also immortal and can fly and talk and stuff. If you're just riding a random horse, the horse ought to abide by ordinary rules.

edited 15th Sep '10 12:04:01 PM by jewelleddragon