Talk:Eragon/Archive 1

Archive 1

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The main page has bias

The main page has bias in the form of the Statemnt not a lot of femal characters are promentaly feactured. It makes the series seem chavenstic... I may place a new Warning this apage is under sddebat type of warning mkay.

I removed said statement, the reasong being that the statement can easily be inferred of one's own volition, and as such can only serve to mislead the reader into believing that there is an ulterior motive to Paolini's characters, most likely that of a misogynistic nature. If you really think it bears stating, tell me why and I wont mind putting it back in. Tarranon 01:16, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that the spioler info on the Eragon page should only refer to spoilers from the book eragon, and not eldest (or empire? when that comes out). I am going to edit some down, including Murtagh's entry on this page. What do you guys think? JohnRussell 14:46, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I second the vote against Eldest spoilers. I didn't expect spoilers from the second book, since Eldest has its own article. Iagomonk 11:08, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

how is Morzan "The first and the last Forsworn" when under Galbatrox it says there are 13. 131.247.44.177 16:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

A: First to stand, and last to fall. 66.213.245.98 23:58, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Exactly!

Leave the character section out. There's already a category for them. - UtherSRG 22:29, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

• Edit: That's true but there are a few characters I mentioned that wouldn't need more than a line or two for their discriptions and most likely won't appear in the rest of the story. I think it would be useful for there to be a seperate section for the characters of Eragon.

-Aznph8playa 22:43, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've rewritten the entire plot section. It didn't have enough detail. It was more of a teaser than a plot.

--Shreshth91($ |-| r 3 $ |-| t |-|) 3 July 2005 10:52 (UTC)

Inaccuracies

"Yet another criticism such as this from USAToday, "The novel also owes a debt to Luke Skywalker as the teen hero trains to be a Dragon Rider while avenging his uncle's murder [10]," is that the plot closely resembles that of the original Star Wars saga[11]. Characters are also similar, down to Brom who is supposedly the last of his order." This is not true, Brom is not related to Eragon and is not the last of the Dragon Riders, as Oromis and Glaedr are still alive -jacobzcoool - 19 June 2006

Obi-Wan was not related to Luke either.

That is only revealed in the second book. Further, Oromis was hidden from everyone, so, for all intents and purposes, Brom was the last of his order.

-* Brom was the only one revealed, and, in the original Star Wars trilogy, Yoda also existed, but was not revealed. --scienceman 11:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Galbatorix was a dragon rider. Like Darth Varder in Starwars but Galbatorix isn't Eragons dad.... It is similar but Galbatorix is the top of the line but Darth Vader isn't. Fra 011 011 08:46, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

No, Morzan was the father, and Morzan was Darth Vader. Galbatorix is Palpatine. And like Linus said, when Luke went to train, he met what was actually a hidden jedi: Yoda. And Eragon went to train in an isolated area away from the Empire where he met what was actually a hidden dragonrider: Oromis. It's not inaccurate. - Krim

UGH! You guys are heartless have you ever tried to write a 300 page book and keep it consistent? Read Harry Potter and get some perspective. Paolini did a very very good job.

So far most of the criticism is about Arya, who probably follows many vegan rules but not others in order to put on a show. Remember, elves are very political.

"The lack of originality" hmmm, he made over half a dozen cities practicaly from scratch, a map, a magic system, at least fifty characters, smart *gasp* villains, an entire set of elven customs that he kept consistent, and dozens of magical words with thousands of different combinations and uses,....... JK Rowling couln't say that much, though I have to admit she came close on some of those.

"Inconsistency" Ok, on which floor is the bathroom in Harry Potter? Since when did Harry have a bedroom? How many typos are in the first book alone? Ask these questions on Harry Potter, ask those same questions in Lord of the Rings and Ringworld, then come back and ask those questions on Eragon. You would be suprised.

all the criticism of Arya wearing leather is pointless, considering the only instance in which she wears it is right after she comes out of a coma, after being imprisoned, has it occured to anyone that she didn't have a choice in what she wore? Also note that in the second book she switches to clothing not fashioned from animals. It's also mentioned that if the animal was not purposely killed for clothing, then it is considered acceptable to wear their hides. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.193.87.97 (talk) 05:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC).

But these aren't typos we're talking about. And JK Rowling was very consistent about where Harry's room was. In fact, it's a reasonably significant part of the first few pages of the first book. JK Rowling spent years planning out the Harry Potter books before she actually started to write them. Paolini didn't do this, and this is evident from the vast quantity of inaccuracies and inconsistencies which fill his book.

And I'm sorry, but every author has made some form of settlement or another. Just because Paolini can invent names doesn't mean he's original (how different are the descriptions for all the cities?). The idea of having a map is copied straight out of Tolkien's works. It doesn't take long to draw a simple picture such as the one he made. I doubt it took him more than an afternoon.

And it's widely known that the majority of his main characters are clichéd. Take away the name from the villagers in Carvahall, for example, and you wouldn't be able to tell them apart. The dwarves are clichéd. The elves are clichéd: they live in forests (like in LOTR). They live for a long time (like in LOTR). They embrace nature (like in pretty much every fantasy story with elves). These customs could just have easily been copied from elsewhere. If Arya had been forced to wear the leather clothing then why doesn't she say so?

Paolini himself has said that he was "influenced" by other languages when "creating" his own. This means he took the languages and copied bits and pieces together, occasionally inventing his own words. Tolkien invented several languages. The languages came before Middle-Earth. All Paolini did was try to fit pieces from several jigsaw puzzles together as if it was one jigsaw. It's no surprise that a lot of it doesn't fit. I doubt he'd be able to say right now that he has a dictionary of all the definitions and has grammar rules and suchlike.

Your point about trying to keep a 300-word book consistent? Well, he could have saved several trees by using "said" instead of "mumbled in a slightly more high-pitched voice than he usually does". He writing stinks of amateurism.

If you don't like a Neutral Point of View then get off Wikipedia and consider taking your head out of the sand, where you buried it when you believed that Paolini didn't get any ideas from anywhere and come up with his own ideas. Watch the original Star Wars trilogy and read Lord of the Rings. Then read Eragon again. It just simply doesn't compare. UnaLaguna 07:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah because you clearly have a neutral view on Paolini's work, and noone said his work isn't derivative, but that has nothing to do with inaccuracies ^^^

The lack of originality means that the plot is very similar to other books, and the book is cliche, not the fact that there are different character names. And many books have maps, cities, 50+ characters, magic, and fragments of a new language (which is what Eragon had)

,

The first section of the article is advertising --213.35.232.160 18:43, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about this sentence..."It is thought that the author, Christopher Paolini, got the name from the Viking King Erragon, (sic) since many themes in the book are derived from Norse language." In interviews I've heard Paolini say that Eragon is simply the word dragon with one letter change. Is this viking king being the source of Eragon's name just fan speculation? CalebS 04:53, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Paolini has mentioned that Eragon has the one-letter change, but not that it was how the name was created. So yes, it is speculation, but has the smae validity of the other possibilites that Paolini has mentioned, such as "Era Gone By". -Bosco

• This page is in need of some MAJOR rewrites. Redundancies need to be removed, the writing style needs to be tamed, etc. I can't do it alone.Phoenix Song 00:39, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

• Morzan was the first of the forsworn and the highest ranking but died last.

Stub created

I've created an inheritence trilogy stub.

{{inheritance-stub}}

So from now instead of putting {{lit-stub}}, you can type {{inheritance-stub}}. Feel free to make any improvements.--May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| r 3 $ |-| t |-|) 16:14, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Sorry about this page being added to the [[Category:Inheritance trilogy stubs]]

This template was TFD'd.--May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| r 3 $ |-| t |-|) 12:17, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation

I'm not sure the pronunciation information belongs in this article. It seems like something one could look up in the index of the book if one was having trouble with it. Otherwise it isn't relevant to the general reader of wikipedia. I've taken it out a few times but it always ends up back in. Can you explain why you feel this section is important and relevant. Thanks! Cmouse 21:53, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok. No answer. It's gone. Cmouse 05:30, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, I for one have wondered how "Eragon" is pronounced. Because I wonder if it sounds as close to "Aragorn" as it appears. So I would appreciate pronunciation info. Isn't more info better than less? gar in Oakland 06:59, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Criticism and Rebuttal

I'm not sure about the new version as opposed to the old one although it has a citation. It's a lot shorter and doesn't cover everything. I'm not going to do anything yet because I want to hear want everybody else thinks. This is the original text:

"There has been much criticism of Eragon, regarding everything from word usage to the marketing techniques. It is said that the most frequent criticism of the book is that it uses far too many clichés. Paolini employs stock characters, such as Elves, Dwarves, and a pseudo-orcish race known as Urgals, which name is suspicously similar to the phrase "ur gals" (sarcasm alert), complete with an elite sect known as the Kull.

There has been much debate over whether or not using Elves and Dwarves similar to Tolkien's is taboo or not.

Using elves and dwarves is not copyright. If it were, D&D, WoW, NetHack, HP, Munchkin, and EverQuest would be sued a thousand times over.

On the note of Tolkien, it has also been brought up that many names in Eragon resemble those in Tolkien, such as Ardwen (compare to Arwen), Isenstar (compare to Isegard), and Mithrim (mithril). It should be noted that these are just a few examples of many.

Sorry folks, but both Tolkien and Paolini took a lot of names from Norse mythology. Some of the names were English based, too though. John, Brom. Angelina, Angel. Solembum, Solem Bum. Teirm, term. Mythrim, Myths Rim. Zorac, Zoro. You get the idea. You are drawing conclusions from thin air, and believe me their is a lot of chaotic languages floating around even in the thinnest air.

Another criticism is that the plot closely resembles that of the Star Wars original trilogy. Characters are also similar, down to Brom who is supposedly the last of his order. However, Saphira, angelina, solembum, and the twins are entirely seperate from the Star Wars trilogy, to name a few.

Paolioni countered these two remarks by stating that most fantasy is derivative, and that Star Wars has heavy ties to Buck Rogers and Dune. Furthermore, he also believed Tolkien to echo a Norse myth about a ring that made a dwarf invisible.

Conlangers poorly receive Paolini's Earthsea-esque "Ancient Language," though many fans, like me, praise Paolini's ingenuity on the subject.

As far as technical writing goes, it is a fairly smooth novel." 67.166.247.121

It also says that the Durza permanently scars Eragon; which we now know is untrue

-I think that it is true, since he was permanently scarred, except it was removed by magic. I don't think it's wrong, especially since he WAS permanently scarred till Eldest. Eragon doesn't include that part.

---

Put the old one back in. It looks like some Random House employee wandered in and decided to make it all pro-Eragon. -Bosco

HEY! Don't assume people are Random House employees, communists, or anti-homeschoolers. If lots of people tweak things in order to make it pro eragon, well, thats a democracy of sorts for you.

-- Where's the "rebuttal" there? There's two sentences attributed to Paolini after three paragraphs. Since numerous examples are given of alleged plagiarism of Tolkien, shouldn't someone go find examples of what Paolini is talking about(that is, examples from Star Wars mirroring Buck Rogers and Dune, or the actual Norse myth he claims Tolkien mirrored), or at least discredit that?

-An actual quote of him saying that would be nice too. -Bosco

The section on Tolkeinesque language now closely resembles the dreaded Original Research (though interesting, not permitted). Can anyone find a notable source to cite for this? The published reviews all call the book Tolkeinesque, but without so much detail. Deborah-jl _Talk 21:11, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

shesh you guys are like that guy in Wierd Al's song "I'll sue ya you never told me not to use your micro wave to dry off my cat". use your brain you will like it it trust me —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.106.167.31 (talk • contribs).

Eldor, Eldar and this kind of words is for sure copied from Tolkien's Lord of The Rings. ExpertPro 21:11, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Taboo vs. Plagiarism

Can we come up with another word? Personally, I don't think "taboo" is a good fit here but "plagiarism" may be a little strong, given that Tolkien was not the first or last writer to use elves and dwarfs. -- DS1953 ^talk 22:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

That's what "debatable" and "honorific" as an alternative are there for. It's no secret that Paolini has been accused of plagiarism, particularly by Tolkien proponents who find his work to be overly-referential and juvenile. We're not accusing Paolini of it. We're documenting an actual debate that exists, perhaps unfairly, given how endlessly imitated Tolkien is. We might look for a way to include that, without coming off as biased. But I think "...has been much debate over whether incorporating Elves and Dwarves similar to Tolkien's is plagiristic or honorific is perfectly neutral." --Antrophica 02:30, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to see actual references of such a debate. Given that books which use Tolkien's elfs and dwarfs are a dime a dozen I think that "plagiarism" isn't at all the right word. It's not like Paolini copied something that hasn't been copied countless times before. We really need to keep theories and petty debates out of Wikipedia and we need to make our language as neutral as possible. Thanks! Cmouse 22:03, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

But we wouldn't be saying Paolini plagiarizes. We'd saying the debate exists, according to a good number of negative reviews on Amazon.com, for example. Personally, I think he emulates. But if it's a lighter word we need, what about 'derivative'? "...is derivative or honorific, or both." --Antrophica 05:36, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Derivative is a great word. Cmouse 21:01, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

It works for me. -- DS1953 ^talk 22:47, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

There are heated debates of that nature on the IMDB movie forum for Eragon. You might also want to provide a link to swankiVY's essay on thet subject (http://members.aol.com/swankivy/eragon.html).

This is interesting. I didn't know of any organized Eragon hatred. But at the moment I'm too tired and lazy to review all of the material, so feel free to incorporate it into the article on your own as long as you can present it in an unbiased manner. --Antrophica 18:52, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The Eragon Hatelisting. --Antrophica 06:41, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Movie

Now that the Eragon film has its own article, do we need all this information on the book's page? How about a simple "See Eragon (film)"?

Also, the movie poster on this article and the one on the movie page are different. One should probably be removed. Which one? (note that the grey-ish one on this page is not actually a poster, but a promotional flyer issued along with other materials - like a map of Alagaesia - by the studio)

Tredanse 11:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

similarities to Tolkein

How do we reference to the fact pointed out that Paolini's dwarf speech is similar to Khuzdul? We can't create an article explaining the semetic sounds of Khuzdul and how the dwarf speech appears to be a copy of this can we? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.152.182.88 (talk • contribs) 22 March 2006

No, not really. If you can find a notable review/book/article/website that discusses the similarity, we can cite it. Should be easy enough to do a search (if you can't find anything with Google searching for "Paolini" "Ancient Language" "Khudzul" ask a librarian if they can show you how to search book review and journal databases). But if you can't find anything it's original research, and we can't talk about it here. Deborah-jl _Talk 15:40, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Similarities to Star Wars

Eragon has some very obvious similarities to Star Wars, but that's not mentioned anywhere in the article. Do you think it should be? Bookworm66 21:38, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

First of all, it is (look in Derivative nature of the books), and secondly, it shouldn't be -- unless we can find an article or other source that says they're similar. Wikipedia is not a place for original research. Deborah-jl _Talk 00:53, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagre that it is a copy of star wars. Many stories have characters go on large quests and are led by a wise old man. So by using this as the main similarity is not a just topic.--Aaronpark 00:26, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

That, too, is original research. Wikipedia is not a place for Aaronpark's opinion, Deborah-jl's opinion, or Bookworm66's opinion. It is an encyclopedia. As the guideline says, "Of course, critical analysis of art is welcome, if grounded in direct observations of outside parties." (emphasis mine) Deborah-jl _Talk 14:54, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I was reading the section about similarities to Star Wars, and think some of the relationships are a bit strained. For example, the article purports that the plot of Eldest could be summarized as "the farmboy leaves to train with a wise old hermit." Since when can the race of elves be described as an old hermit? I definently agree that there are many similarities, I think the article takes them too far. 67.171.242.75 06:59, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I think wise old hermit refers to Brom, who originally trained Eragon. Care to give any other examples of similarities taken too far?--May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| ŗ 3 $ |-| ţ |-|) 09:03, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

You probably want to knock the whole Star Wars thing on the head and the LoTR too. Star Wars "steals" from a variety of sources itself including Tarzan by Burroughs. LoTR from E R R Eddission and so on. I would simply let it drop. Candy 13:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

The Anti-Shurtugal is a good source. Perhaps if you were to leave in supposed similiarities, such as proposed by the Anti-Shurtugal article. Of course it's not an infallible source, though, so some reserch is required. You'll find that the similarities are much, much more than a kid going on a quest. And it doesn't matter if Star Wars takes some of its ideas from other sources, because it did bring some new things to the table. Paolini failed to do so. Here's a brief summary: A farm boy with a mysterious past comes upon a mysterious object sent by a princess that is in distress. The farm boy's house is burned by the evil tyrant's soldiers when the farm boy is absent. The farm boy goes on a quest for revenge, and a mysterious old hermit comes out and joins the quest. Later it is revealed that this hermit is the last of his order, peacekeepers of a once-grand stretch of space. That's the beginning. Which story is this? - Krim

The wise old hermit in Eldest is Oromis. Oromis has a similar role to Yoda... wise old guy who trains the young dimwitter hero further in the ways of the Force - I mean, ah, Ancient Language, after Obi- er, Brom dies a tragic death. One of the hermit's first lessons is hanging Eragon Skywalker upside - I mean, umm, paralyzing him to teach him the subtlties of the Force. More in a moment... 169.229.121.94 03:32, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes, and it's hinted (due to the strange illness, which is Paolini's own idea) that Oromis will die in Book 3, leaving Eragon to mourn his death (and Saphira to mourn the Dragon Yoda's death, as Glaedr will die w/ his Rider). 169.229.121.94 03:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

And the farmboy thing is just a flaming obvious ripoff. And the lightsabers - ah, I meant Rider's Swords. I draw the line at saying Saphira=C3P0, though. 169.229.121.94 03:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

No no, Saphira as an egg is the Death Star blueprints, when she hatches she becomes an X-Wing fighter. Later in the books she probably is something else, but that's the general idea. 200.48.20.67 15:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

As for LOTR... The "I am diminished" line from the Queen of the Elves seems VERY familiar. If not directly, then in concept. Plus, the Valenril the Mariner thing... wasn't one of the Elf twins in Tolkien's Simillarion suffering from the same dilemma? He loved the sea, but also loved a elf-woman? And Eragon's pronunciation is VERY close to that of Aragorn. So much so that I pronounced it like that for about three years, but off-topic. 169.229.121.94 03:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The thing is that Eragon so BLANTANLY ripped off the plotline of Star Wars. That, and the little "homages" {{spoilers}}

... Morzan was your father? Sounded better as I am your father. Search your feelings, you know it to be true? Given almost exactly as one of Eragon's lines in Eldest.

A father, who has now turned evil, loses his magical blade in a climatic duel with his old fellow mystic knight, and said mystic knight passes it on to the man's good, naive, farmboy son. The boy uses it faithfully, but in the climax of the second episode/book, is defeated by a good man turned bad, and loses it after hearing that his father was evil. Lightsaber of Darth Vader, or Zar'roc? 169.229.121.94 03:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC) {{endspoiler}}

I can go on for a while more... antishurtugal.com will help you out a lot. It's the major Eragon criticism site, and contains the plagrisim sections in its Forums, usually under Common Themes, and has an entire article on it on the main site. ... Anti-Shurtugal is a nice site, fans welcome, feel free to discuss... Eragon's not that bad a book. It just... has originality problems. And Mary-Sue problems, but that's a different matter. 169.229.121.94 03:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

First, this isn't a place to bash/praise the book; this is a place to discuss making the article better; if you want to bash the book, that's fine- but do it someplace appropriate, like the anti-shurtugal site, not here.

Second, as Deborah-jl already pointed out, we need to have reliable sources that state these criticisms, otherwise it's original research, which is a big no-no. I'm not denying that there is a strong similarity/ripoff/etc (I've seen the film and agree that it's very derivitive), but our opinions aren't the ones that matter- it's those of the reliable sources. That's why the old criticism section was cut out. It shoudl be noted that one of the reviews that is posted in the current criticism section does mention a similarity to Star Wars. Cheers --DarthBinky 16:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

If you watched the review show, X-Play's review of the game, it goes into extensive detail on how it ripped off star wars. For more info, go to www.g4tv.com than serch eragon.--Uber Cuber

Then you should add the link to the article for the game instead of here- this article is about the book. --DarthBinky 00:47, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I haven't read the book but I have been doing some research on the book to give myself a better idea what is going on. There is a similarity I would like to make. The Varden is similiar to The Fellowship. Both groups have a mixture of Elves, Dwarves and Humans... or at least Brom because he was the one who founded the group. The only non-similarity is that one of the Elves was in control of the Fellowship and a Human was in charge of The Varden. I'm not criticising... I'm just stating one of the similarities to the book. I have no reason to criticise the book.