Dec 18 2007
Eragon Review
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Eragon is one of the worst novels I’ve ever read. But let’s look at the positive: how can Eragon improve your writing? It can help you identify and fix problems in character development, story structure and plotting. For example, let’s look at its characters.
1) Eragon
Eragon is the prototypical Chosen One. Unfortunately, he never really grows into something more than someone destined for great things. Why does his dragon come to him? Because he was destined to have a dragon. Why does he decide to stop Emperor Palpatine, err, Galbatorix? Because he was destined to. Why will he eventually get the girl and save the world… well, I could go on.
A strong character has traits that drive the plot. In His Majesty’s Dragon, Temeraire the dragon is a radical abolitionist and supporter of dragon rights, which leads him to (spoiler– hold your cursor here). That doesn’t feel contrived at all, because Temeraire’s morality clearly dictates that he should perform that action. This works because his character traits cause the plot. Temeraire is rebellious, so he should act rebelliously.
Eragon’s characters do not drive the plot. They act as the plot needs them to. Eragon is a wuss, until he learns that he’s really a hero. What causes that change? His great destiny, apparently. Being driven by destiny makes him passive. Let me show why that’s a problem.
Saphira (the dragon) comes to Eragon for no particular reason. Eragon doesn’t do anything to get his dragon. That wastes an opportunity to show us what he’s capable of, and why he deserves to have a dragon. His Majesty’s Dragon used the experience much more effectively. Captain Laurence’s ship captures Temeraire’s egg. Instead of the dragon being an honor and privilege, the dragon is something the characters want to avoid. The unlucky handler will have to live away from civilization and work in a dangerous, filthy profession. The crew draws straws and a 14-year-old sailor draws the dragon. When Laurence sees that the kid is struggling with the dragon, he decides to sacrifice himself by taking the dragon instead.
This shows us several things about the characters. Lawrence is a compassionate and loyal leader. He’s brave. He was not passively destined or chosen to have a dragon– he chose to take Temeraire. He has realistic concerns, like worrying about not ever being able to see a play again. In short, Laurence is both heroic and relatable. We even learn something about Temeraire: he has standards and cares who his partner is. Unlike Saphira, we can relate to him as something more than just an animal. My problem with Eragon is that there isn’t any reason Saphira comes to Eragon. Worse, I can’t think of any reason that I would advise Saphira to pick Eragon. He has no traits that suggest he would be a valuable partner.
2) Saphira
Temeraire from His Majesty’s Dragon is a fantastic example of how a side character can drive a plot and develop the main character. But Saphira is a case-study in cardboard. Saphira makes most Pokemon look three-dimensional.
Consider the following: Pokemon (successfully???) characterizes Ash’s Charizard as lazy and disrespectful, which is fairly impressive given that he doesn’t say anything intelligible. Saphira has every advantage but she is actually worse-characterized.
Strong characterization depends on readers being able to associate characters with key attributes. Han Solo is selfish but loveable. Charizard is lazy. Temeraire is idealistic and rebellious. Saphira is nothing but a flying pack animal.
Wasting Saphira in this book was particularly egregious. She’s on the front cover, and the only selling point of Eragon is that the book has a dragon in it. If all the superheroes in Superhero Nation were as boring as she is, we’d have a real problem.
3) Brom/Murtagh
These characters came right out of Central Casting. Brom is the Friendly Storyteller and Murtagh is the Mysterious (But Friendly) Stranger. Both serve essentially the same role, to provide wisdom and insight to the brash and clueless Eragon. Conveniently enough, one enters as the other dies.
4) Galbatorix
I’ll preface this by acknowledging that I’m fond of many supervillains. I write stories about them, too. So you might argue that it’s hypocritical for me to criticize Galbatorix for being one-dimensional. On the other hand, you could also argue that “wow, if even a superhero novelist thinks Eragon’s villains were superficial, they must have been truly awful.” Indeed.
Galbatorix is the villain and he doesn’t have any motivation other than being EVIL. He’s like Green Goblin, but without the nifty armor. As far as cartoonish villains go, Galb is a particularly bad one. And not bad like Darth Vader was bad, but bad-like-Gigli bad.
There are two main ways to make a villain interesting.
- Ideological power—when the audience vaguely sympathizes with the villain’s objective (separate from his means). This worked particularly well in The Rock, for example.
- Badassery—a combination of swagger, flavor and/or whupass.
Galb had neither of these, but the best villains usually have both. For example, Darth Vader and Doctor Octopus are obviously badass, but Darth Vader is also ideologically powerful because his villainy stemmed from a noble desire to create order. Doctor Octopus (in the movie) wanted to vindicate what his wife died for. And he had 6 arms.
Cliché fantasy races
The author of Eragon stole his elves and dwarves so blatantly from Lord of the Rings that Tolkien should have been credited as a co-author. Many fantasy novels draw on Tolkien’s conventions, but usually they try to make up for that by adding their own spin to the source material. For example, if you were writing a book set at a magical university like Hogwarts, you could make it feel fresh by using a new perspective. Instead of focusing on a precocious young wizard, maybe you’d look at the teachers or the administrators or campus security or the admissions office instead. Eragon doesn’t do anything like that. It ends up feeling like LOTR fanfiction. With Pokemon.
I could say more, but you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to Eragon. This book and its sequel* are best enjoyed as an expensive alternative to firewood.
*It has two sequels, but I’ve only been unfortunate enough to read the first.
Oh. My. God.
THANK YOU!!!
I hated this novel, but could never quite put into words ‘why’. Any time I criticized it at all (for being derivative of both Tolkein and Lucas, who himself borrowed from at least half-a-dozen fairytales), I was firmly verbally slapped down by people who felt otherwise. They almost all concluded any argument about its worth by stating, “And the author was only 16 when he wrote it!”
Yes. I can tell.
Thank you for cogently explaining the problems with this ‘classic’.
His age isn’t a real excuse. I’ve come across a few teenage writers that have professional style and an independent voice. Moreover, if his age was a huge obstacle, why not spend an extra year or two to write an Eragon book that didn’t suck?
I think the best reasons to rush a book are that you either need the money now, or you need to publish the book prematurely to bolster an application for college or graduate school. But he didn’t want to apply to college immediately, so it seems a bit questionable to me that he didn’t wait.
I personally thought Eragon had potential…until Paolini squandered it. The book was mediocre and the movie was worse. Even CG couldn’t redeem it.
Eragon didn’t let me down as much as Soon I Will Be Invincible. Nothing about Eragon suggested it would be good. The premise has been heavily used (”an unlikely teen becomes a dragon-rider”) and the plot and characterization were utterly hackish from page 1.
Soon I Will Be Invincible, on the other hand, had a fantastic title/cover-page, a neat premise (a superhero story told mostly from the villain’s perspective!) and some good early chapters. SIWBI only genuinely sucked by the end.
In contrast, I’d say the worst part of Eragon was when the elf-chick was introduced (in chapter 2, I think). I am absolutely mystified why anyone would enjoy Eragon– dragon-riding books have been done so much better by (among others) Anne McCaffrey and Naomi Novik.
Actually, before Eragon, I’d never seen dragon rider stories. (Or at least if I had, I didn’t recognize them). When these books are clearly better than Eragon, why did Eragon become a movie and not these others?
That’s a good question about why one book becomes a movie and not another. Damned if I know. For what it’s worth, though, His Majesty’s Dragon was optioned by Peter Jackson (the guy that directed LOTR). His Majesty’s Dragon is another very contemporary dragon-riding book, but much better than Eragon.
Eragon’s generic-fantasy setting is more familiar to movie-goers than His Majesty’s Dragon, which is set in the Napoleonic era. Movies are more of a mass-market medium than novels: a book that sells 100,000 copies is a bestseller, but a major release that sold even a million tickets at $8 each would be an absolute disaster. One estimate put Eragon’s budget at $140 million, so you need to sell tens of millions of tickets and DVDs just to recoup that investment and the advertising budget. Also keep in mind that studios typically only get half of the cost of a movie ticket.
Putting together a large audience for Eragon would probably be pretty easy… “LOTR with dragons” is a much easier sell than a story with antiquated English. Additionally– although I’m not qualified to say this with any degree of certainty– I’d speculate that Eragon’s fans are slightly younger and more likely to watch a summer action movie.
If Eragon is so badly written, then why do people like it so much? Or, for that matter, why do I like it so much? I willingly and emphatically concede that Eragon is deplorable and badly written, but whenever I read it, it never fails to engross me. Or is this perhaps due more to my own imagination than to Paolini’s writing?
Also, I now more clearly see the “chosen one” pattern you were getting at. Especially in Eldest, good things keep happening to Eragon for no good reason. (His scar is healed, he turns into an elf or at least blessed with their abilities, etc.) After this I came to the conclusion that his cousin Roran (who is much more dynamic) would have made a more satisfying main protagonist. His actions drive the plot better than Eragon’s and my only complaint about him is only that he seems to mature a bit too quickly. In fact, I often find myself wishing that he, rather than Eragon, was gifted with a dragon (perhaps he will be later, I haven’t read the third one. But there will be another rider and I’m banking on either Roran or Arya). But rather than using this more useful protagonist, Paolini confines him to a lesser story that appears mundane when compared to Eragon’s. Your comments?
I think it’s because Eragon avoids the single most destructive problem for fiction writers: confused writing. Eragon’s readers always understand what is going on, which is a major accomplishment in fantasy. With a fresher plot and better characterization, Eragon could easily have been a really good novel.
I’m carefully trying to avoid saying that Eragon’s problem was that it wasn’t “complex” enough. Generally, I find that works that are described as “complex” range from confusing (A Game of Thrones) to seizure-inducing (Syriana). Complexity is not (by itself) a virtue of good writing. Anyone can complicate a work by adding layers of deceit, backstabbing, aliases and byzantine conspiracies, but those elements are more likely to make the story convoluted than interesting.
The problem was that Eragon’s plot was absolutely rote. “Boy gets dragon. Boy becomes fantasy superhero. Fights against Empire. Gets girl.” Nor did it execute this mundane plot particularly well. The girl was so forgettable that I thought the romantic angle fared poorly against most comic-books and George Lucas movies. The dragon was such an intolerable waste of space that I can’t really think of it as a character so much as a flying pack-animal. This book could have been His Majesty’s Dragon in a fantasy setting. Instead it was a LOTR ripoff.
And Roran?
Erm. I haven’t actually read the sequel, and Jacob got real surly the last time I asked him to review it. I think what he said was “wasn’t once enough?” Give me a few months, heh.
Ha ha! Surly, eh Agent Orange?
Surly is definitely one of my favorite words.
I never read the book, but thanks for the heads up! I wasn’t overly fond of the film.
The movie was lame, then again I’m not big on fantasy films. The book was really popular in middle school like how Twilight is now, so I guess people got duped thinking “they made an Eragon movie, YAY!!” and then ending up idiotically satisfied or suicidally depressed when they saw it. I’m also not big on dragons or mythical races either, I’m an aliens man. Mythology is cool, but if I used it I’d add that genuine R.B. alien twist.
Surly is a funny looking word, whenever I see it I think of the word ’sinewy’ and then I picture a bodybuilder haha.
Cadet Davis, come back!!!
I was pretty disappointed by the Sci-Fi network’s TV adaptation of The Dresden Files. It had some charm but the pilot suffered from gratuitous flash-backing.
I actually liked the movie so much that I bought the book, just to discover that even though I have nothing against clichés in movies they are dreadfully lame in books. I read the other “just because” and got even more disappointed. My biggest problem was (is) that Eragon never really did anything, things just happened around him.
I agree completely. Eragon is the perfect example of a Chosen One. Why does the dragon come to him? Why does he get the mentor? Why is he the Rider? Why does he have magic? He apparently received all of these things by virtue of his birth/destiny. He does not earn anything he has.
What IS special about Eragon? A Chosen One should be chosen for a reason.
“Look, there’s a very skilled boxer, about to win his third trophy! But what’s this? A whiny farmboy who can barely use a pitchfork? I’ll take him!”