Amph ~The Inheritance Cycle, by Christopher Paolini~ Discussing its literary merits

Yeah, I like him. And I wish that Galby had shown up earlier. Eragon's going to have to fight him, so why not give him more page time?

 

Somehow I don't think Eragon will fight him, or if he does it will be no way a fair fight.

Just reading an article about Arya, it says A LOT about Paolini

 

Actually, while it's not an exact replica of ROTJ, Brisingr does in fact share a lot in common with a bunch of the first part of ROTJ. I mean, you have them rescuing someone from being eaten by some nonhuman creature (han/sarlacc pit), a second family revelation (leia is luke's sister), you have the yoda-character's death.. what else happens in the first half of that movie? All they have to do now is make their assault on the second Death Star.

But first they're going to travel there. A lot.

...I just copy and pasted that into my response to Brisingr. The response isn't very well written, but I think it's worth glancing through for the pictures.

Tames Was Here

 

Loved your review, Tames. Sarcasm much? Love the pictures. Definitely a highlight.

I'll probably read Brisingr when I get home from school in December, just so I can form a coherent opinion and review of the cycle to date. It's kind of hard to develop something going off the opinions of others, even if they are brilliant.

Why do I get the feeling the last two books of Inheritance are basically cutting RotJ in half, and we'll see the psuedo assault on the second Death Star in Book 4? Oh yeah, and lots of traveling put in.

Do they ever do anything during that traveling time or is it just some merry descriptions of the oh-so-beautiful landscape? Huh.

Katana, which article about Arya were you reading? I've read several, and they speak much about the author too.

Nat, I'll join in on the Murtagh opinion there. I actually liked his character. I think that Inheritance would have been much more interesting if it had been written from Murtagh's point of view (someone shoot me if I ever grab the idea of to write an Inheritance fanfiction doing that, please, I don't think I would be able to stand the shame and I've got plenty of other ideas that need to be written). Galbatorix is turning out to be a waste of a villain if he hasn't physically appeared yet. Pseudo!Sauron? That's the feeling I'm getting and it's not working out. If Eragon ends up facing him in the end, the end battle probably won't make much sense because we're lacking in character development on Galbatorix's part. There's much more to villains than, "Mwahahahahaha, I'm evil and you know it!" *mustache twirl*.

 

I loved that! The sarcasm was amazing (I love sarcasm) and the pictures were really funny (especially the one of you trying to eat the book). Very nice "that's what she said" and Raven would be proud of you for dropping everything for Sanderson

Idri, if you ever try to write Eragon fanfic I will beat you over the head with a raelly heavy book. Not one inh this series because I don't want to waste my time getting one, but some other really big and heavy book


I'm not planning on reading just to see how bad it is. Events on Eldest are starting to feel hazy since I read it three yeares ago, and I don't want to re-read.

 

Nat, I have a wonderful selection:

Either of these (yes, those are mine, big and hardcovered and VERY heavy) or this (any of the plays in there are miles better than what we're discussing ).

Or you could just refuse to beta any Inheritance thing I write.

Not that I'm going to. I'm just weird in even thinking that I could write for a fandom I don't like.

I've read Eldest a couple of times, but not recently. I still remember it quite well, though.

 

With books I don't like, details tend to get fuzzy overtime. Actually, with books I like where everyone had complicated names that sound similar to everyone else, too

 

Check out the Eragon movie. Galby's physical presence is nothing but "I'm evil!" and *moustache twirl*. Or, more accurately:

"Hi, I'm John Malkovich. I have bills to pay. So let me grace this film with my presence, not bother to act at all, and collect my paycheck. Ka-ching!"



Oh, as for his eventual presence in the book, I'm calling it right now: he shoots lightning from his fingertips!

 

Speaking personally, I despise the Inheritance series.

When first reading Eragon, I asked myself, "Where have I heard this before?"

Then I remembered.

"Ahhhh, Star Wars!"

Lone farmboy becomes unlikely hero, is taught the ways of an old fighting art by old man, old man dies, farmboy decides to follow his footsteps, wants to kill big bad guy, finds out that big bad guy is his really his father (shocking!) and fights huge battle at the end to make himself a hero to everyone. Oh yeah, and fights with another guy over princess, finding out that the other guy is his brother. Geez.

In addition to that, there are whole sentences from Lord of the Rings that are plagarized, and the overall concept of magic-using half-mythic monsters isn't all that original!

In short, the only reason why that despicable Paolini character got his book published was because his mommy and daddy owned the publishing company. I guarntee you that no other publisher would have taken a chance with such a liability.

And this thing that people say about readers not liking him because of his age is a bunch of bantha podoo.

He graduated from high school at 16 and wrote a book so I hate him?

Nope.

I graduated from high school at 14 and I still hate him. And it's because of his principles, or lack thereof.

 

Good man.

I think people hate the idea not of him graduating young (I know a couple of really brilliant kids who did that) but that he published a book that was a good first attempt at writing but was a bad first publication, and became world-famous for it (partially because he was so young).

 

If the books are so much like star wars as you guys rant about then why doesn't George sue? Because it's not the same story. You people are just taking every little thing that is similar to anything else and saying he stole it. I have read a lot of books that have had a similar story as star wars, or lotr. Does that automatically mean that the writer is a copy cat?

 

No, because stories (especially fantasy stories) follow a pattern. And George borrowed from others as well. But he still managed to craft an original story. Paolini did not. The writing isn't very good and the plot line is as unoriginal as it gets. You can still have a dragon-and-elves story without doing the exact same thing as a dozen other people.

 

Precisely. I would have absolutely no problem with the story whatsoever if the idea was an original one and well-crafted, at that.

 

But it is not a complete star wars copy up. I will agree that it is not the best writing I have ever read. But in of itself it is a good story. Can we not just talk about the story itself and not rant about how we think it's too much like star wars? Or is that too much to ask for?

 

Hey, I'm not ranting! You brought the counter to my topic into question.

Calm down! Relax! Life is NOT over! Trust me.

 

No, but it's not just Star Wars, it's other things as well. And we have sort of talked it to death and repeated ourselves but that's because we don't really think it has any literary merit. But if you'd like to move us into a different tangent, you can.

 

I was hoping to talk about The Dragon's Hearts of Hearts, and what you guys think about them?

 

What if instead of discussing the shortcomings of the series, we focused on how it could be improved (constructive criticism and all that)?

 

Someone had a really good post a few pages back, though I can't find it now.

Anyway, to discuss the shortcomings is to discuss what can be improved (in future writing, anyway; I don't know that improvement in style will up the series as a whole or fix the plot issues for the Inheritance Cycle, since it's 75% published).

 

I think Murtagh should be the main character and he meets Eragon later, that would be a good start.

 

How about a more original storyline? Fresher twists? Lose the dragons, kill the magic; keep the swords, keep the language.

 

That's what I've been saying. I think the story would be more interesting if written from Murtagh's point of view.

 

Well, yes, a more original storyline, but dragons alone don't make it unoriginal. Lose the dragons, lose the entire idea, and we're talking about a completely different series. The language could go, it sounds pompous.

 

Hmm...I suppose he could keep the dragons. I think the language should be modified, but not lost entirely. I like a story with an alien language in it. I can't tell you the hours I've spent on Huttese.

 

Man, a little while ago today my friend Willard, who is totally into the whole Inheritance deal, told me he's finally getting to reading Brisingr. I asked him how far he was, etc. then whether or not he liked it so far. He told me it was alright, but not enough has happened yet and that the first half probably could've been easily compressed into 50 not-quite-as-boring pages. I told him that it stays pretty much that boring throughout the entire thing, and, instinctively I went off on all the different tirades I could think of against Christopher Paolini and Inheritance and such.

I was talking about the fact that Christopher Paolini doesn't revise, and that Eragon probably shouldn't have ever been published in the first place, and that he didn't have to go through all the things other authors have to go through, and that he isn't even that great of an author anyway, and that the story is unoriginal, and that he could probably be a pretty good author if he'd had any struggle to be published at all, and that the fact that Eragon was so successful is attributable to subliminal messages hidden inside crappy pop songs, and that the books just plain suck... And I was wondering how the heck he wasn't getting it. How the heck no one gets it!

And then I realized that I wasn't actually arguing with anyone. In fact, Willard had been agreeing with most everything that I said. That he totally got it and that I was saying most of this stuff for no real reason at all... for my own strange benefit.

So my question now is... what is it about Inheritance that gets me so excitedly pissed off at things? Really. What is up with this thing?!



Just thought I'd share.

Tames Was Here