The Inheritance Cycle

So, anyone out there in love with Eragon and Saphira? We can just chit-chat about what we think with happen in Inheritance, the fourth and final book, THAT IS COMING OUT IN A WEEK.

GAHHH.

Anyone excited?

YES.
We see what happens - finally! I remember the prophecy (SPOILER) That Eragon and Arya would leave this land forever.

I love the first two books, but the third one disappointed me. When we saw things from Saphira's point of view...well, I didn't care for it.

Love this series by Christopher Paolini!

Does anyone cherish the same hope that I have, that Murtagh will reform? :D

Guys, I suggest you brace yourself-this is NOT a popular series on the National Novel Writing Month forums, to say the least.

^Pfft, hahaha.

Ahem. Anyway, yes, I'm excited to know what happens. ^__^ Really enjoyed reading Brisingr, quality of writing aside, and I wonder whether people's predictions of a complete Star-Wars rip-off will come true.

I, personally, am hoping Eragon and Arya don't get together.

This is fans AND critics, right?
Well... I used to be a big fan but I am definitely not now, and I think that what should happen in the final book is:

Galbatorix is revealed to be the good guy and the Varden and Elves are revealed to be terrorists who have been spreading lies about Galbatorix. In fact, the Dragon Riders of old were the evil overlords and Shruiken willingly joined Galbatorix to overthrow them. Murtagh, Thorn, Elva, Nasuada, and the Urgals join Galbatorix in stamping out the Varden threat and that sociopath Eragon -- a few Elves, like that Vanir fellow who didn't like Eragon, survive and join Galbatorix -- then Galbatorix finds a Rider for the third (green) egg -- the green dragon is a female, the Rider is Nasuada, and the green dragon rebuilds the dragon race with Thorn while Murtagh and Nasuada live happily ever after.

Mind you, I don't think this will happen, but I would be so happy if it did.

I greatly enjoy the Inheritance Cycle. I'm currently reading the books in preparation for Inheritance. And I need to say this... YAY FOR SMALL LOCAL LIBRARIES! The large library district in my area is only getting ONE copy of it. I was twenty something in line (Out of seventy some people...). But with the little library, I'm first in line! Yes! The only problem is that Inheritance is coming out during NaNoWriMo...

I haven't ever really understood most of the complaints people have about it. I can understand three complaints about it, but that's about it. (Plot being similar to Star Wars, parts of it greatly resembling Lord of the Rings, and Roran being a Gary Stu) And actually, when I started reading through it, I started out looking for writing problems. I gave up well after the point some people have said they stopped at because they couldn't take it any more.

That would be one awesome twist, you know.

I feel I should also mention that I'm not against Arya and Eragon - Brisingr and that one scene in the end together had me squealing excitedly. But...but...it just doesn't go with Arya's character. She's been so icy cold in the first two books, and in the third she's suddenly melting? What? No. It's just too plain cliche. But it would be sad, too... :/

As I've said before, I'm almost certain that Murtaugh will redeem himself and end up dead. Probably redeem himself by sacrificing himself to save the world. I'm hoping for plot twists, but I rally don't expect much from him.

Can't say I'm a huge fan of the series. I read the first book, and it was an impressive Cliche Storm, but I couldn't hate it too much because, well... that's the book I would have written at 15, too. I read pieces of the second book, though, and started to find it pretty problematic. Especially Eragon's magically-healing-dramatic scar and then the whole becoming-an-elf bit. I don't even know. I think if I had read the books when I was much younger, instead of picking up Eragon when I was in college, I would have been much more interested in them.

Mostly I find myself a bit irked by Paolini's attitude, where he seems to think he is the most awesome thing since sliced bread. Being a bestseller does not a good author make, and I find his writing to be pretty bland and still a bit amateur, which is disappointing. Like I said, I can completely forgive it in Eragon, and even the second book, but I would have expected his writing to get better as he got older, and instead he seems to be doing mostly the same thing.

Hmm, I think it's pretty badly written, and packed full of cringe-worthy cliches.
But still, I like it quite a lot, and am happily re-reading the series in preparation for my pre-ordered copy of Inheritance! :)
It's like Harry Potter.
Craply done, to be honest.
But I love it anyway.

I am SUPER excited! I have had this pre-ordered for a while...

Personally, and I know this would NEVER happen... I want Elva to get the last dragon. x]

She's my favorite character in the books. And really, that's my only reasoning for her getting the dragon... One of two things would happen if she did: One, the dragon would mellow her out considerably and she would stop being so crazy or Two, the dragon would give her even more of an ego and she would go even more insanerer. (That's a word. The Doctor says so.)

I've never heard or seen any interviews with Paolini, so I can't give an opinion on that front. However, I do agree that his writing is improving greatly. It becomes more obvious if you listen to the audiobooks.

Also, Paolini did not get Eragon published at 15. He thought of the idea of the books when he was 15, but they were not published he was almost 20 after much editing.

I can understand the criticisms of Eragon and all that. (And I'm with you all, I do NOT think he should end up with Arya.) However, there seems to be something that a lot of people don't consider, especially with Eragon as a character: he didn't ask for all this. He didn't ask to be stuck with a dragon, or to become a Rider or anything like that. It all happened because of Brom.

And though it's easy to tell that he wouldn't go back in time and change it now, he didn't WANT it to begin with. He didn't want to cause the death of his uncle or to be the reason his town had to flee their homes. He also didn't ask to be changed into a sort-of elf; Saphira and Glaedr did that to him themselves. And before his scar healed because of that ritual, he was trying to work through it himself, but getting frustrated because of the pain. That's pretty typical of a human, I'd say.

And while it's true that Eragon seems to be a bit of a Gary Stu in the fact that everyone loves him, they love him BECAUSE he's a Rider, not because of the person he is on the inside. Only the people he gets to know end up liking him as a person. The general public love him because he has Saphira and they're looking to him to defeat Galbatorix, which he never asked for either...

Personally, I think SwankIvy puts it best (http://swankivy.com/writing/essays/info/inheritance/eragon.html is a link to her essay on Eragon). Eragon is, in the end, about typical for someone in Paolini's position (NOT, however, Eldest and Brisingr, which don't have the same excuse for their poor quality in Paolini's age)--which is specifically why I don't like it. It personally irks me that someone's parents would have the audacity to just publish whatever their kid wrote, then tour around the country until they get picked up by a publisher, not only disgracing those in similar situations to Paolini, but also seeming to pretend other kids Paolini's age (or younger!) don't also write, or gasp! write better.

I read the first book when it first came out and kind of liked it (I was young). Then I started reading the second one and came upon dragon angst... Yeah, no. Also, Eragon had become incredibly unrelatable to me since I thought he was being a spectacular idiot when it came to his 'love confessions' to Arya and I identified more with her about the whole thing. After this point, I took an objective look on what I had read before and realized nothing that was really interesting about the series.

Sorry to folks who liked it, but, really, the series brings nothing new or inventive and, maybe the rest of the series isn't, but the beginning is to the point of being rather derivitive.

The movie was also a pretty spectacular fail and I kind of wish I could erase it from my brain.

I tried to read the first one and thought it was pretty poorly written, so I never finished more than about a third of it. I'm glad Paolini has found success as a writer, and also glad to hear his writing has improved (as one would hope/expect given that he is older and more experienced now).

I've read the books, and I'll read the last one, though probably not right away (I want to reread the first three because I remember very little of what happened after the first book ended).

Here's my take: yes, Eragon is highly derivative of other popular fantasy novels. Yes, the writing is mediocre. But if it's that bad, why would people keep reading? Why do I keep reading, despite the fact that I've been known to lay aside many a book because an interesting premise doesn't outweigh terrible cliches and purpose prose? It's because there's entertainment value there. We all want something new -- but not something too new. I'll admit it. As much as I love finding highly original works, as much as I'm completely awed by them at times, there are other times when I want a book that's familiar, a story where I can almost-but-not-quite predict what's going to happen.

To be fair, if I had read Eragon before Eldest were out, I probably wouldn't have kept going. One of my biggest pet peeves about the whole series is Murtagh's faked death. It was SO OBVIOUS that Murtagh was not dead. A better author (or an older, better author) could have pulled it off. Another author wouldn't have made it so blatantly obvious that the Twins were evil. Another author would have realized that no one's going to believe you just killed off both Ajihad and Murtagh at the same time. This part really makes me want to smack my head.

There are other things, too, throughout the series. Someone else mentioned the magical healing of his back wound (obviously Eragon couldn't suffer from a debilitating injury for the whole rest of the series, but the solution could have been much more elegant than -- hey look! I'm all better! And I look like an elf now ... that was pretty bad. And to be honest, I'm not a fan of the fact that Orik became the new dwarf king. I love Orik but it's only because he's Eragon's closest (only) dwarf friend. I'm wondering how much Paolini is actually going to get into the details of how this affects the final outcome with Eragon and Galbatorix, because unless there's some big, unseen twist with the dwarves, I don't see how it was necessary to go into that much detail. It may have been fun for Paolini to write, but unless it was necessary to the plot, he (and his editor, because let's face it, most authors do rely on their editors to help with decisions like this) should have dialed it back.

To be honest, a lot of how I judge the series as a whole is going to depend on this last book and how he ties everything together. But also understand that he set a number of precedents back when he was a teenager first writing Eragon and he has to stick with those, whereas if he'd been working on thre project, improving it, before publishing, he would have had more leeway. In the end, no matter how well he closes out, and yes I do think his writing has certainly improved since Eragon, he's still closely out the story that he wanted to write as an adolescent. To be honest, I would actually look forward to whatever he does after Eragon almost as much I am waiting for the final book in this series.

As to the people arguing about the validity of how Paolini's career got started. I think there's a bit of a disconnect going on between the two of you. Soupnazi has a point when he says that Paolini never would have gotten Eragon published through normal means had he not been published by his parents and toured the book himself. But I think what needs to be focused on is not whether you agree or disagree that this was a good way to get published. The point is that the media often portrays Paolini as a writing prodigy, and I don't think that's the case. Yes, it's awesome that he's a bestselling author and that he broke all kinds of age records (and am I a little jealous? of course). Focus on those things, not claims that he's the best because of the unconventional way he was able to publish. There are now other authors younger than him (who are in their mid to late twenties) who are not bestsellers but who are being considered for major prizes in writing. He's not better than they are, he simply took a different path.

That being said, I agree with Overlord that there was nothing wrong with Paolini breaking into the business the way he did. Maybe you don't think he "deserved" this advantage given to him by his parents. Maybe you're jealous because your parents can't or wouldn't give you the same advantage? I'm not sure. But honestly, I think his parents did what most parents would do given the ability: they gave their child the chance to succeed at something which really mattered. It's really not much different than a kid who gets into an Ivy League school because that's where one of their parents went. It's not unlike parents of certain atheletes who make major sacrifices and often work their lives around their child's sport, even though it's highly unlikely their child will actually make it big (I'm thinking more along the lines of less popular sports, not big ones like football, baseball, etc., though these probably fit the bill as well) and oftentimes despite the fact that their child isn't nearly as good as they think he/she is.

I think what Paolini's parents did for him was pretty awesome. Moreover, I think you're underestimating the role he played in it. How many of the young writers on here would be able to stand up in front of a group of kids their age or slightly younger, dressed up like it's a Renaissance Faire, and convince them to buy a book when most of them don't even much like to read in the first place? I doubt there's many teenagers who could do that, but Paolini did well enough of a job at it that he was discovered through the son of a published author and showed enough of a sales potential that the publishing house picked up his novel.

In the end, yes, sure, there are better writers out there than Paolini who are right around his age. But here's the thing: what constitutes a good writer? Because you can have an excellenet grasp of language. You can tie together every piece of your plot seamlessly. But unless it's also a complelling read, why should anyone buy it over something they really love? Would you argue that everyone should only buy/watch indepdendent movies (or movies of that style) because the big blockbuster movies just aren't as well made? No, you'd tell people to watch what entertains them. To add a couple other examples: one, Charles Dickens. Amazing writer. But in my opinion, his plots are so boring and his characters so annoying I want claw my eyes out. Another example is a young woman ... a year younger than me so maybe a year an half younger than Paolini. Considered one of the best young writers out there. Published a novel that sounded like it had great potential. I read it, but to be honest I had to force myself to. Despite beautiful phrasing and characters who were clearly well fleshed out, I felt no connection to the character. Nothing compelled me to keep writing. So a better writer, maybe, but she didn't make me feel anything at all.

To sum up: yes, there are better writers than Paolini. There are better young adult fantasy series (Pullman must, in fact, be a genius). It should be noted that Paolini's success is as much due to his family's situation as his talent. But there is also something charming about the series that keeps even many adults reading, something entertaining and/or compelling, and those are not qualities that can be written off in a book even if it has weaknesses in other areas. As I said before, I found the series worth reading but have nothing mean to say if others didn't. I will be most curious to see if Paolini's venture after this are more original, now that he's developed more as an author and a thinker in general and not limited by working off a set of premises penned when he was a teenager.

I completely understand every critizism of the books. They are cliche, and yeah, not the best written. But I like them anyway. Maybe because I like dragons a lot. I'm not saying they are the next classic, but that I do enjoy them. And I very much agree with Zewology.

But now for a few thoughts on what might happen in the last book, because I'm an irrational fangirl that way. I believe the Vault of Souls with have a MASSIVE amount to do with the book. I'm not sure I want to post it here... But I'm 95% sure I know how this is going to go down.

Also, taking in the fact that the book, as well as the entire series is called Inheritance, and that both Eragon and Murtagh had fathers who had dragons, who will be the one to recieve the last egg? Hmm?

My guess is that Arya gets the last egg. Because I really can't see any of the current characters getting it.

Roran is the badass Human character...

Nasuada is... Well I just don't like her all that much. In fact there was something she said or thought during Brisngr that has me believing that if she were to come into real power once this is over she would eventually lead to a serious crackdown on magic users... Which may more may not throw the magic using community into chaos and such.

The Dwarf... well hes out because he is a dwarf. I don't believe they are even capable of it. I also can't remember his name.

I mean Arya, as of right now, seems to be the only actual option. That and considering there is a good chance that when Eragon leaves the country, she will probably be going with him. But then who knows?

As for why Eragon leaves is more then obvious. He seriously pissed off that tree girl thing. In return she will ask him to leave. He will also most likely piss off the dwarves as well. Unless Murtagh dies Eragon will most likely not kill him and avenge the Dwarf King's death. He may try and rationalize it in that he killed the personality that killed the king, but I don't think that will go over to well.

Roran will most likely succeed to the throne once Galby is dead. How? Because Eldest and Brisngr have been building it up. He started off as this guy trying to defend his home and through out the books he has shown that he is capable of leading men into battle and will become a hero to the common folk. But then maybe he will just return to Carvahall and rebuild the farm. I believe there was some story he was inspired from in Eldest about a great hero turning to a life of farming instead of killing.

Well those are my predictions anyways.

There's an option for the new dragon rider that no one considers. I've said it before, but Elva should get the egg. Why?

1.) It would really be the least obvious thing to do. And she's really sort of BAMF.
2.) The girl has already been twisted by a Dragon Rider's blessing.
3.) She's got her own abilities already, albeit given to her accidentally.
4.) While it could certainly be argued that she might go crazy and get even worse (as mentioned in my previous post), having a dragon may also mellow her out. Saphira often mellows Eragon out when he gets irrational.
5.) The fact that she hates Eragon would make the entire situation hilarious, in my opinion.
6.) Paolini seems to have built up her abilities and made her the focus many times in the books, for no other reason than that Eragon broke her and now he needs to fix her. To spend so much time on her alone is odd to me.

To be honest, I don't actually think this will happen. But it would be cool. Lol

I couldn't even make it through the first book because it was SO STUPID.
And before everyone comes at me: I do my own dragon stuff and seriously? Did Paolini even think about the stuff he invented?
Dragons don't hatch until a rider touches the egg even though they used to be wild creatures: This makes no sense. Animals that hatch from eggs hatch because the yolk is all used up since they feed from it. Dragons surviving without yolk means that dragons need no food. Which is stupid if they were wild creatures.
Even fantasy fiction should make sense in itself.
Dragons as huge as mountains: this is too exaggerated unless they need no food at all (see the thing about eggs).
Dragon dies if rider dies: No sense in this at all. Their connection seems to be bound via magic, not life force or anything. If they share a life force it would only be fair if the rider dies too if the dragon dies. Otherwise this is just stupid.
Magic stuff: Dragon gives rider its magic. Crap. Why should they?
Also, why would a dragon agree to be a human's pet or companion? They gain nothing from it. Even worse, they don't gain a thing from this bargain. This makes no sense.

And also, the story is a mash up of too many other stories for me. /: And I don't like Eragon. He's a Gary Stu. It's no fun reading about the magical dragon adventures of a Gary Stu.