This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Content copied from The Inheritance Trilogy Discussion
Ununnilium: Took out:
- MacGuffin, the Dragons themselves.
...because they're not; they have a role in the plot beyond just moving it along. Also, replacing So Bad Its Horrible with Guilty Pleasures. (So Bad Its Horrible isn't generally as successful.)
Duckluck: I'd just like to point out that Star Wars isn't the only thing this series rips off, it also borrows heavilly from Tolkien and Anne Mc Caffrey. In fact, as far as I can tell, if you take out all the stuff he cribbed from other fantasy books, you'd basically just have a really thick stack of blank pages with the dubious words "magic comes from dragons" at the begining.
Kizor: Good fantasy writers steal from myth, average fantasy writers steal from other writers, bad fantasy writers steal from role-playing games.
Alexandra Erin: Okay, this children's book series isn't exactly a great work of western literature, but I'm sensing some subtle undercurrents of bitter jealousy toward its author. :P Yeah, he caught a really lucky break in terms of bringing his stuff to the market right when the wheel o' zeitgeist was pointing at "magical fantasy adventures for young readers", and yeah it is a lot like Star Wars being played out as a D&D campaign, but do we forget that D&D is itself the exact same flavor and shade of ultra-derivative, shamelessly looted and plundered crap? I'd call the Inheritance Trilogy important in the annals of fantasy for the same reason D&D is...
Which is to say, it gets people in the door, doesn't it?
Pepinson: Oh, come on—you can't seriously be comparing this stuff to D&D. We owe a lot to Tolkien and Howard, sure, but it's not just ripping them off—to some people, myself included, the whole point of the game is to recreate the classics of fantasy in an interactive format. This guy, on the other hand, is just ripping all this stuff off. And what's this about getting people in the door? In my experience, it's usually the other way around.
Tanto: There's nothing inherently wrong with being derivative. As I pointed out in The Lord Of The Rings Discussion, many great writers stole shamelessly from other works. The value of any work of fiction lies in its presentation.
I've never read this series, but from what I've heard, their problem is not that they're unoriginal, but that they're badly-written and adolescent.
Ununnilium: Okay, no, just no:
Remember all those times when you wrote a story and you really wanted somebody to publish it? Then you later re-read, and discovered was crap?
Paolini didn't re-read.
We can definitely be subjective here, but IMHO, outright "This sucks!" (and, conversely, outright "This rules!") don't belong in an entry.
Alexandra Erin: Thank you, U. That's what I was talking about. I've got no problem with people saying he's derivative, because that's a good deal less subjective.
@Pepinson: And how can I compare the two? D&D WAS a pile of poorly written derivative crap. It's improved remarkably with age, but it's had decades to turn hobbits into halflings, hasn't it?
@Tanto: It's adolescent writing, yes... I'm defending it but I hope nobody thinks I'm advocating it as literature... but to come back to the poit, it is adolescent writing. Go into Borders or Barnes & Noble. Ask where you can find a copy of Eldest. Guess where they'll point you? To a whole section of writing for adolescents. Open ten random books in that section. None of them will be any better. (and yes, I'm sure you could specify some books for "young readers" that are better. So could I. I'm talking about a random sampling.) Yeah, the story is pure juvenile fantasy wish fullfillment... so pure juveniles can relate to it. If reading it leads them to the Lord of the Rings or Earthsea or even Dragonlance or R.A. Salvatore, I call that a good thing.
Anyway, I'm not going to make a point of continuously championing a children's book series. :P I just don't get the ire towards it.
Tabby: As someone who primarily reads young adult fiction and who has a distressing knack for finding terrible, terrible books, Eragon is still worse than 90% of what I've read.
Roland: While I've never read the books, I have to agree with Tanto. The tone of this article is a bit unfair or at the least rather towards the adversarial side, if you ask me. There's a difference between acknowledging that someone's writing needs a lot of work and being borderline spiteful. We could really make similar comments about a lot of the stuff on this wiki as we do for Eragon, but this has to be one of the least-appreciative entries.
I mean, at least speaking for myself, here, though Eragon -might- be derivative and uninspired, but at least the kid got published. I haven't been nearly so lucky, and I like to think I'm a reasonable writer. One should applaud his dedication and spirit.
Tabby The kid got published because his parents own a publishing company. No "dedication and spirit" required.
Zelnor: If you need to see a perfectly polite and logically written statement that shows you why, for many of us, Eragon is an insult to anyone over the age of five, look no further then here.
Wild Knight: The above is a 404 error. Just...just sayin'.
Lale: I'm sensing something similar to the Animation Age Ghetto in the above discussion, that "children's/ young adult literature is not quality literature."
Kilyle: Insanity. I'm 29, and many of my favorite books (when they don't come from the Classics shelf) are Young Adult:
- Howl's Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones)
- This Time of Darkness (H. M. Hoover)
- Deltora Quest, and the Rowan of Rin series (both by Emily Rodda)
- Invitation to the Game (Monica Hughes)
- Village of the Vampire Cat (Lensey Namioka)
- The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm (Nancy Farmer)
- The Good Master (Kate Seredy) — in my Top Ten Recommends for any child
It is my considered opinion after a three-decade love affair with the library that, as far as plain text novels go (that is, cutting out comics and graphic novels, which are honest literature in their own right), Young Adult has the statistical edge over Adult. That is, if I pick up a dozen books at random from the YA shelves, and a dozen at random from the Adult shelves, I'm going to return eight of the Adults without reading them, read barely a chapter of three of the Adults, and maybe find something to like about the last; but of the YA I'll at least read a few chapters of each, probably finish eight or nine, and like three to five well enough to check out a second time. Probably sixty percent of my favorite text books are YA. (These numbers are what my brain thinks at 8:30 AM when I should be getting to bed. Don't expect the specifics to hold up to examination. But the principle is still there.)
After giving the idea some thought, I have come to the conclusion — my working hypothesis — that writers for adults can and do rely on sex, swearing, gore, and unheroic protagonists to act as drawing points, whereas writers for Young Adults have to actually come up with characters, setting, and plot. And as I'm generally turned off by gratuitous sex, swearing, and gore, and distinctly turned off by protagonists who don't meet some standard of virtuous conduct, no wonder I gravitate toward the YA shelves.
But regardless — hypothesis or no — the idea that YA isn't literature is absolute bunk. As for the percentages of good reading vs. Adult novels, I've no idea of the reality, merely my history in trying to pick up books at random.
Nentuaby: Bosh. Eragon manages to be complete crap all on its own, you don't need to bring in anti-YA feeling. I am the originator of the quote at the top, and yet by favorite fantasy work of all time (Sabriel by Garth Nix) is YA.
Seth: Putting the quality of the books aside (Because i have not read them) even as an adult i enjoyed to film. Derivative doesn't always mean bad.
Ununnilium: I thought the film was at least okay, though I did continuously point out the Star Wars parallels, much to the irritation of my friend.
Phartman: Woah, I just found out that this Paolini kid is my age! That does it: I'm going to start writing a book of my own. I don't know what it's going to be about, but my only rules will be #1: No dragons, elves or dwarves, #2: No borrowing from well-established literature, and #3: No stupid names. Wish me luck, as my family doesn't own a publishing company.
Lale: The Outsiders has none of that (except for the stupid names, but owners of said names know they're stupid), and S.E. Hinton wrote it at age 16.
Phartman: Good point about Ponyboy. Still, I can't go back in time seven years, so I'd have to work with what I've got. The third rule would probably be the easiest to adhere to; is it so hard to just name an elf Fred or something?
Lale: Hard, no. Doable...? Not all unusual names have to be stupid — just look at the nickname system in Holes.
Did we just start a trope? Whats In A Name?
Phartman: Yes, I can hear it now: Fear me, for I am the evil Emperor Fleebwonk McGruzzlebutt! I know, I know; silly naming is just verisimilitude for "what you're reading is not supposed to parallel reality at all," but it's difficult to take some characters seriously when they have names like "Galbatorix" or "Dooku." Especially Dooku; your villain's name should never sound like a euphemism for baby poop.
In all seriousness, I have plenty of confidence that I could crank out a decent book. The only difficulty would be in selling it, as that would be the only part that's out of my hands. There, am I in the club now?
Duckluck: A couple years ago, I sat down to write a book, so I wrote a prologue. I went back and reread it and realized it was shit and I needed more writing practice if I didn't want it to turn into something lousy. All I'm saying is that Eragon is just as bad as the thing I threw out as garbage. I'm sure I could write something as good as Eragon, but I could never get something that bad published.
Phartman: Well, first off; I'm glad we're now on the same page for the most part. However, I hear people always say stuff like "When I look back at my own work, it's always so terrible," but the truth is, I don't get that from the stuff I write. It always seems like something someone else did that I'm reading in a magazine or journal. I've only ever done opinion pieces and reviews, but my prose is clear and easily relatable without insulting the reader's intelligence, at least that's how everyone who's sampled my work has put it, and could easily lend itself to fiction.
I don't know whether it's that I'm talented, arrogant, or I just have a lousy memory (please don't choose for me), but writing is one of my very, very few gifts, and I'm confident in my ability to tell a story that doesn't draw from anyone else's work. In fact, I lied about not knowing what to write; I've been running the entire story through my head for months now and it's just a matter of transferring what's in my head to paper, which I've now started on.
Really, I don't have a beef with this Paolini kid; I respect storytellers no matter what their level of ability, even if I think the story itself totally munches and the prose reads like a D&D manual. And I don't care that the kid got mom & dad to publish it for him, either; even if no one else ever wants to read my story, I still want to tell it.
Wish me luck, Duck.
Morgan Wick: Meanwhile, I aim to write War and Peace. Only not so boring. My problem is getting out of the first chapter without getting bored.
Phartman: Let's see: on the one hand, I have my own large portfolio of previous nonfiction projects and the encouragement of numerous peers and professors. On the other hand, a crabby stranger who has no idea who I am just made a facetious and unfunny remark. Hmm...
Wick, you make a compelling case, but I think I'm going to continue with my outline anyway. Sorry.
Duckluck: To be fair Pharty, we don't really know how good a writer you are, but since 90% of everything is crud and we all know it, you should expect to be met with some cynicism. Anyway, good luck man. Besides, even if your book turns out to be crap, you'll never know until you write it. ...and that's all the time I have tonight for inspirational cliches. Good night, internet!
Phartman: One of my other natural gifts is the ability to tell cynics to kiss my ass, so I won't be letting anyone dissuade me. The only luck I'll need is in finding an audience for this when I'm done, but I've already started on the project; I've spent at least 30 hours in just the past week working on the character outlines and a draft of the overall plot arc and it's coming along quite well.
Seth: Even if the book sucks you can make some money from it if you can convince someone else it doesn't, hell I have an aunt who made 20K from her horrific autobiography. So it's always worth a shot. And if it's a hit, well you can always donate money to pay server costs :D
Phartman: Well, I do owe you guys for all the laughs, I guess. But the way things are taking shape, I doubt this is going to really and truly suck, and if we're using Eragon as our baseline, things start to look even better for me. By the way: it's a coincidence, but one character's middle name is actually Seth.
Seth: I don't blame you. It is a spectacular name :D
Lale: Quote — "However, I hear people always say stuff like "When I look back at my own work, it's always so terrible," but the truth is, I don't get that from the stuff I write."
That's a first. Even Louisa May Alcott hated what are considered her best works, while the books she slaved over and put high hopes of fame on are hardly even remembered.
Phartman: Like I said, I'm not sure if it's that I'm good or that I'm just cocky, but the few people I've shared my work with, even professors who hated me and desperately wanted to fail me, have all told me that I should be writing. But really, to reiterate: I'm not doing this to make money or gain recognition, and I don't care if it ever even gets published; I'm doing it because I want to.
But the break time's over, and I've going to get back to work on it. Be good.
Kitoari: At any rate, back to Inheritance Cycle Discussion. I had come to the conclusion that it was worth reading, but no way in hell am I paying for the fourth book. Why? The author stated that resolving Eragon's killing related angst (which already had bucketloads of Moral Dissonance) added 100 pages to Brisngr.And it didn't really resolve it all. With that kind of prose, you know What'll happen: 5 books... 6 books...Inheritance Cycle Forever...
Lale: Is it true that someone actually says at one point "Look within yourself — you know it to be true."?
Wild Knight: Yes, it's 100% true. The context was different from the original situation, but it was still jarring — if I remember correctly, it was Eragon convincing his cousin that his uncle was just as much of a father to him (Eragon) as he was to his cousin.
Air Of Mystery: It's worth mentioning that you can have an empire and not be an emperor. For instance, France had an empire even when it was a republic. So Yeah.
Selasphorus: Any intentions/objections to doing redirects for Inheritance Cycle? I've seen that one around the site in a few places rather than Inheritance Trilogy, and now that it's officially not a trilogy...
- Spectrum: I decided to be bold and move it. Ought we to move the talk page also?
fleb: Done.
Rogue 7: Ansem Paul, it's generally not a good idea to bash two completely random shows on a completely separate page for no reason other than you dislike that this series gets criticized to hell and back (and I'm one of the group that thinks it deserves it.) Saying that, if you want to debate Naruto with me, I'd love to get started.
Ansem Paul. Was a bit childish of me, I admit. But as for YGO GX, how come this site has a dozen pages mentioning how supposedly awful and cliched this is, yet it treats an anime about an unbeatable mentally retarded kid (seriously, he can't even remember the text on Pot of Greed AND THATS 3 WORDS) playing as a deep mind screw show. I call shennigans
Rogue 7: It's "shenanigans". And I think that what you saw was the Mackered English dub- done by 4Kids, surprisingly enough. I haven't seen the Japanese version, but apparently it's quite a bit darker. Hell, I haven't seen most of the english version. And IdiotHeroes does not mean that a plot can't be deep or complex- Tales Of Symphonia, though certainly chiched, is an example of this.
Wild Knight: Natter keeps growing in Designated Antagonist. Permission to move to this page?
// Later: ...'kay, fudge that. The entire page is starting to become pretty darn negative. I've gotta go to class in a few minutes, so I can't take care of it now...and hey, maybe I'm interpreting things wrong. I dunno! But just because There Is No Such Thing As Notability here, and this here is a very informal part of the Interwebs...I don't think it necessarily gives us license to run totally rampant with the mean-spirited Take Thats going on here. Believe me, I can't stand the books either — but some people do like them. We can't throw it into So Bad Its Horrible, because enough people do like them. At the very least, we should try and keep some modicum of neutrality here. And now I really gotta go. brb.
fleb: Zapped the Thread Mode monstrosity. I skimmed a bit, but it all comes down to Offstage Villainy, right? (It's probably deserving of the negativity that's not, you know, content-free potshots, but yeah, it's far from So Bad Its Horrible. If we kill the gratuitous natter the page greatly improves.)
fleb: Under Kick the Dog...
- Aside from the morally dissonant atrocities our heroes are mentioned to have done, we have the elves attacking an allied village without warning or mercy.
...Was this actually an author-intended Kick the Dog moment for the elves, or was this just pointing out the unintentional-Not So Different to the now-axed Galbatorix Kick the Dog "But he destroys villages! (Okay, still offstage...)" example?
Wild Knight: Random, likely useless observation: I'm starting to wonder if anyone editing this page has actually read Brisingr, or is just taking Kippur's word for it. Point of reference: the Shout-Out bullet shows up only after she (he?) posted the sporking of the chapter in which the Doctor Who reference is made. Now, to be fair, I'm a little guilty of this myself, as I haven't read Brisingr and don't really intend to anytime soon (I did flip through it at Barnes and Noble...). No malice intended in this observation, I'm just...observing. It strikes me as curious, is all.
Alilatias: I've decided to take out the following line, because for one, this page is not a full-blown subjective page, and two, an entry that basically insults others' intelligence does not belong on a not-completely-subjective page like this. I feel that this one has crossed the line between tolerable and offensive/unacceptable.
- Guilty Pleasures: A lot of people like the books as long as they turn off their brains.
However, I would recommend that someone put the example back in as long as it is changed so that it is worded in a much less potentially offensive way.
Wild Knight: Whoops, sorry about that. It was blank at first, but I added the description because it seemed to be the case - I didn't think it was that offensive (I was thinking in terms of something like "well, there's this one group that likes it as is, whereas there's this other group that likes it if they turn off their brains"), but now that you mention it, I can definitely see how it is. I'm not sure how to reword it, and I think I've proven I can't necessarily be trusted with doing so, so I'll just put it back on the list and hopefully someone else will think of something.
fleb: About "YMMV"... of course mileage varies. Everyone's mileage varies for everything that's ever been made (e.g.: some people hate Citizen Kane). It's a truism, way too vague and universal to be useful except as a Stock Phrase reminder. Broken Base, Contested Sequel, and Love It or Hate It would be "people disagree" tropes specific enough to be listed, but none of those seem to apply here.
The Gunheart: Okay, having never read the books, I have to ask...under Author Appeal, what the hell are the "blue furries" referring to?
Anon: Oh gods, the blue furry. I had forgotten it existed and I was so happy. Uh, it's this elf that has modified itself to have blue fur which exudes pheromones that make him super-attractive to women. As you might expect, he's a jerk.
Superkid11: Ok, fan of the books here. Although I recognize most of their flaws(ripoffy, Boring Invincible protagonist, ect), I'm going to have to call BS on a few of the assumptions made about the book and Paolini. First of all, the "Religion is Bad/Stupid" agenda he allegedly has. People seem to be forgetting about the Dwarves, who are quite religious and generally presented in a good light. The Elves, it seemed to me, were implied to be not quite as perfect and always right as they'd like you to think. They may not be correct in their atheism. It seemed to me that the existence of any Gods or afterlife in the series, despite what Glaedr says, is left completely ambiguous. Just like in [[Real Life]]. This really struck me after Hrothgar's death, where Orik said they needed to ensure his passage to the afterlife. Plus Orimis said "I won't tell you what to believe." The Dwarves and Elves present the two belief systems and Eragon is left to decide which one he agrees with. His moment when he promised to return to Brom's grave also suggested to me that he hasn't completely bought into the "no afterlife" belief yet. Which leads me to the next thing. The Elves supporting all of Paolini's beliefs and ideologies. If Eragon is supposed to be his Author Avatar, shouldn't he agree with them by now? I admit, I'm only 100 pages into Brisingr, but Eragon is willing to eat meat to survive and doesn't lecture people on it who enjoy it.
I think there are other things I could argue about, but I can't think of them at the moment. It just kind of irritates me that people can make such assumptions about an author based on the fiction he writes without any word of mouth from him. (Unless any of this came from an interview with him or something. Then I'll happily put my foot in my mouth.)
Wild Knight: Ooh, intelligent discussion with a real-live fan! As much as I dislike the books, it's good to see some of you exist, you seem like such a rarity!
Now re: the religion of evil/stupidity/etc. bit, it's more a case of Unfortunate Implications and undertones beneath the work when taking into account some of the things known about Paolini—mainly the fact that he is at least atheist, and "lean[s] in that direction" of vegetarianism. The dwarves are generally presented in a good light, yes, but the scene everyone remembers is the one where Arya coolly and cleanly cuts down an angry dwarf priest's logic "in a very pleasant voice." Paolini portrayed Arya's argument as reasonable and logical and the (slowly losing his head) dwarf priest's argument as outright stupid, which made this self-proclaimed agnostic and even some major atheists uncomfortable. It felt like he set up the priest as a Strawman Religious, if you will. Sure, the dwarves are still good guys, but this scene made it sound like they were stupid good guys—if Paolini felt like being fairer, he would have written the dwarf priest as more level-headed and thoughtful than "RAWR YOU INSULT MY GODS HULK SMASH". That scene, Oromis's tract on religion, and the totally random chapter where Eragon converts to veganism are the scenes that stick out in everyone's mind, because it felt like the author stopping the story cold to espouse those beliefs. Eragon may or may not agree (or pay attention), but those chapters killed the pacing of the story and went off on tangents—the usual signs of an anvil being dropped.
Re: Eragon's Author Avatar-ness, for most of Eldest, I don't think it can be argued that Eragon essentially does adapt the elvish beliefs—he converts to veganism, he questions religion, and he Deus ex Machina's into a half-elf thing that makes him super duper strong.
The thing about everything I've just written up? It all applies to Eldest, at the latest. And to be totally fair, we're not giving Paolini a chance when we continue to criticize him without reading Brisingr—and it seems like some of the Author Avatar-ness is being addressed, with examples you cited about Eragon making his own decisions. Those chapters in Eldest left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths, though, so that's what the Fan Hater tropers cite. Still, if he really is undergoing Character Development, that'd be a great thing to note on the main page.
Superkid11: Wow. I completely forgot about this. Yes, I seem to be somewhat of a rarity. I guess I'm a [[Twofer Token Minority]], also being an intelligent person among Runescape players. (granted, judging by the Runescape page on this site there's plenty more where I came from, but when weighed against the rest of the Runescape community...) I haven't picked up the book again in some time, so I'm not entirely sure whether this trend keeps up or not. I hope it does.
Insanity Prelude: I shouldn't have read this page before Brisingr came out. Now I've got the library's copy and I'm sitting here wondering if I can read it without all the negative opinions coloring mine (I actually enjoyed the first two, though admittedly, that was some years ago.)
Also- I forgot until I read the "previously on the Inheritance Cycle..." bit at the start of Brisingr, Eragon's supposed to be fifteen? Possibly sixteen now? He sure as hell doesn't act it, even before the whole half-elf transformation thing.
Superkid11: If you enjoyed the first two, you'll enjoy Brinsingr. Plus if the above discussion is any indication, Brinsingr is actually better than the first two. One thing I should tell you though. At one point, there is a scene with a bee that is supposed to be dramatic but will probably make you laugh.
I Drown Fish: I didn't find it particularly dramatic, but at the same time I didn't find said scene to be Narm. I could see how some would find it Narm-y, though.
Lale: The old page description was funnier and more clever.
fleb: Ditto. Put it back—the most recent spoiler was already tagged anyway.
Raxis: The Cain and Abel example should just get dropped, because nobody seems capable of agreeing as to which of the two is which.
Jerrik: Maybe it's subverted? Cain and Abel does seem to apply to Murtaugh and Eragon respectively, but is screwed up by their motivations.
Wild Knight: ...Doesn't Katrina get pregnant in Eldest and isn't it a minor plot point and a big reason why Roran wants to marry Katrina? It's been years since I read the book and I can't bring myself to do so again, but I seem to remember something along those lines (I definitely knew that Katrina was pregnant before hearing a thing about Brisingr...).
Wild Knight: I see people have started ignoring the note. Time for some Bold Inflation. I'm too lazy to try and clean up all the natter, though...
...and yet I did anyway because I was bored and drunk and had nothing better to do. WHEEEEEEEEE.
Seriously, people. This is a wiki, not Anti-Shurtugal. I realize we're freer and shit than Wikipedia, but letting our opinions (both negative and positive - outraged defenses of the series aren't any better, you're sinking to their level) run fucking rampant over the page made it an absolute MESS. Cut it. The fuck. Out. Believe me, I hate the series — trying to read Eldest when I was a teenager gave me a migraine headache so bad I'm fairly certain I missed school the next day. But if I can hold my opinion in and maintain some goddamn modicum of neutrality when I'm not even sober, I think the rest of you are perfectly capable of that as well.
Come on. This is TV Tropes, not some AOL chatroom or 4chan or some other dark slimy corner of the Internet. This is a place of concentrated awesome that recognizes both cool and uncool works. We're better than this. Don't prove me wrong on that count, for cryin' out loud.
Xi Whoeverski: Removed the following:
- The Wesley: Eragon, he is the author's pet hero, it's hard to argue against.
From my understanding, The Wesley is when a Suish character warps the plot into revolving around them (at the expense of other, supposedly equally important characters). The plot of this series revolves around Eragon because he's the main character - the first book is named after him.If he's too much an author's darling, that just makes him a Gary Stu.
- Who cares about appearance; pity poor Elaine! Someone wrote that her entire purpose is to be pregnant, and this seems to be true: she began the series about six months pregnant, and is still pregnant almost a year later. This was hilariously lampshaded in the third book in which someone mentioned that Elaine could use some assistance, as her child was overdue. Really? We had no idea.
- The whole confusion over Elaine's "overdue" pregnancy is mostly due to misinterpretation of the timeline. She isn't pregnant in the first book; her pregnancy doesn't appear until Eldest, which takes place about six months after the first book. According to Word of God, the first three books take place over a time period of less than one year, making it perfectly plausible that she'd still be pregnant at the end of Brisingr.
- It all happened within a year? Well that only raises further more daunting questions...
- Who cares about appearance; pity poor Elaine! Someone wrote that her entire purpose is to be pregnant, and this seems to be true: she began the series about six months pregnant, and is still pregnant almost a year later. This was hilariously lampshaded in the third book in which someone mentioned that Elaine could use some assistance, as her child was overdue. Really? We had no idea.
The above was put under Beauty Equals Goodness. Come on, people, if you want to argue about the series' continuity, at least put it under the correct category.
Should the fact that Christopher Paolini plagiarized numerous paragraphs of text from David Edding's Belgariad series be mentioned in the article? I could point to a number of sections where Paolini literally copies half a page or more, changing little more than the names.
Man Without A Body: Will someone please tell me what Eragon did to that Sloane chappie, and why? I keep hearing the event vaguely tossed around as Moral Dissonance, but so few details are given that it feels like some kind of Noodle Incident to me.
- He discovered Sloan's true name (in the ancient language, describes someone's very nature, gives almost complete control over someone using magic), and use it to cause Sloan to travel to Ellesmera (despite his being weak, injured and blind, although Eragon did use several spells to protect him as well), where he would be unable to leave unless his true name changed (which is possible, but only if a person changes their very nature. Arguably Moral Dissonance, although Sloan did betray the village and murder someone, so IMO not as much as some people claim it is. Because Sloan did this in a misguided attempt to protect his daughter Katrina (but actually directly causing her to be captured instead), the main part of Eragon's punishment of him is that he would likely never see her again. As it is though, if Eragon had just killed him instead, Fan Haters would have likely said Moral Dissonance even more, I think.
- Also, he does this after he and Roran rescue Katrina, without Roran (or Katrina) knowing what he did or even that Sloan was still alive.
- Don't forget the Mind Rape. The thing that bothers people about Sloan is that Eragon doesn't really have any right to do what he did. If Eragon had handed Sloan over to the villagers, and they decided to kill him or exile him or whatever, I doubt anyone would say there was anything wrong with that. Instead he pretends Sloan is dead, robbing the villagers of any chance of justice. And from the description given when he punishes Sloan, it really, really sounds like it's less about justice, and more about Eragon wanting to ruin the life of a man who "made trouble for him" when he was younger.
- How is that Mind Rape? And what is Ellesmera? You're going to need to give me some more context on this one, I'm afraid, as the only familiarity I have with this series is that I saw the movie. And why did Sloan think killing someone would protect his daughter? Whom did he murder?
- It happened in Eldest. The Ra'zac go to Carvahall with some soldiers to try to capture Roran, the village defends itself, killing the soldiers. Sloan tries to betray Roran to the Ra'zac (I guess thinking they would leave the rest of the village if they got Roran, despite their being Always Chaotic Evil), mudering one of the villagers in doing so and causing himself and Katrina to get captured. Ellesmera is the elves' capital city in Du Weldenwarden, the huge forest to the north. I assume the implied Mind Rape could just about be called it, when Eragon was using Sloan's true name, he was visibly disturbed by it, the quote he said is something like 'it feels like someone is walking on my grave' or something. I agree, not really Mind Rape in the general sense, but I see what they mean.
- Actually, the Mind Rape I was talking about came before then. During a conversation between the two of them, Eragon makes a bunch of statements about how he has become a hero and done a bunch of amazing deeds, and Sloan doesn't believe him, probably because the last time Sloan saw him he was just another kid. So, Eragon doesn't like this, and decides to use telepathy to invade Sloans mind, and forcibly implants the memories of his actions there, so Sloan has to believe him. This process is, as the rest of the books tell us, incredibly painful, can cause the victim brain damage, and is most commonly used to torture people. And worse, completely unnecessary, as Eragon is capable of doing the same thing without causing any harm, he just didn't care enough to bother.
- But the thing is, it's only "incredibly painful, can cause the victim brain damage, and is most commonly used to torture people" (awkward quoting, sorry) if the person doing the action tries to make it that way. Otherwise, it's only mildly uncomfortable. It can be a bit disturbing, sure, and especially to those who had never known the feeling of mental contact with another mind before, but the Twins (the ones who performed the first, incredibly painful experience) were trying to purposefully cause Eragon pain. They were just plain sadists and were working for the Empire on top of that. Eragon used the mental contact to prove to Sloan who he is, sure, but it wasn't like he was mentally shoving a sledgehammer into Sloan's gray matter.
- From the book: “Lie?” roared Eragon. “I do not lie!” Thrusting out with his mind, he engulfed Sloan’s consciousness in his own and forced the butcher to accept memories that confirmed the truth of his statements. He also wanted Sloan to feel the power that was now his and to realize that he was no longer entirely human. And while Eragon was reluctant to admit it, he enjoyed having control over a man who had often made trouble for him and also tormented him with gibes, insulting both him and his family. He withdrew a half minute later.
Wulfang: I'm especially bothered by the following paragraph, under Alternate Character Interpretation, as it just pretty much proves the person who wrote it hasn't read the books and is writing it only to distill hate.
First of all, Morzan was a traitor who joined with Galbatorix, helped him murder another Dragon Rider and Mind Rape his dragon into servitude to Galbatorix. He was the first and foremost of the Forsworn, traitor Dragon Riders who sided with Galbatorix and then assited him in killing off all other Dragon Riders and dragons, leaving the later on the brink of extinction, plunging the whole continent into a devastating war. Brom infiltrated his castle so he could provide the Varden with information on their enemies. There, he fell in love with Selena, Morzan's wife and Murtagh's mom and did eventually impregnate her (something he didn't know), but she had long been planning to leave Morzan's side due to the atrocities he forced her to commit as his personal assassin and the cruelty he showed both towards the common people and even to their son Murtagh, whom he once crippled by throwing his sword at him in frustration. Then, one day, thanks to Brom's information, a member of the Varden managed to get his hands on one of the remaining dragon eggs but eventually disappeared, forcing both Brom and Morzan to track it down and then fight to the death over it, Morzan even taunting him by saying that Selena had disappeared. When Brom managed to kill both Morzan and his dragon, he rushed to the latter's castle, only to discover that Selena had returned but had died in the meantime. He realized she had given birth from what the healers told him and managed to find his newborn son under the care of Selena's brother in Carvahall. Tying off any loose ends with people depending on him, Brom moved to Carvahall so he could watch over his son and protect him, never telling him about his true parentage for fear that Galbatorix would try to reach Brom through him. He did regret never telling Eragon he was his father, but he was convinced it was for the best. So, having that in mind, I'm deleting this thing.
