this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024
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I don't know about worse, but the Eragon books and movie are equally terrible.
I'm not gonna go claiming that the Eragon books deserve a prize, but I loved them as a kid, and comparing them as equals to that movie is bordering on insanity.
The movie was good because it dropped all pretentiousness about where he was stealing his plot from.
Eragon was my first foray into proper swords and sorcery fantasy after Harry Potter.
Are the books really that bad in your opinion? By no means do they reinvent the wheel, but I enjoyed the magic system and enjoyed the aspect of Dragon + Rider and that relationship we see between the two.
I havenβt read much other Fantasy besides LotR and Stormlight Archive, but I enjoy the Inheritance Cycle.
I enjoyed the magic system at first, but it kept expanding and expanding to basically undo its own limitations. I remember being disappointed with the last book, but being especially disappointed by how it ended. It felt like a very forced attempt to have the same bittersweet ending Tolkien gave us in Lord of the Rings, but unlike in that, it felt completely unearned and illogical.
The books end that bad. The first couple were pretty good, but the ending was awful and ruined the whole series.
Take my opinion with a slight grain of salt because it's been at least a decade since I read the book and a half of the series that I got through, but from what I recall the books just didn't really have much to them - flat characters, awkward dialogue, and the actual prose itself was pretty bad. It was also boring enough that I just didn't care about anything that was happening, and I'd read enough good fantasy by the time I read Eragon that its flaws were hard to look past - I know the dude was a teenager when he wrote it, but that doesn't make the work magically better. Not trying to shit on anybody's parade, but it just really wasn't my thing.
Granted the author was quite young when he started the series (15) to when the first book got published (18, first self published then republished by an established publisher a couple years later). He's came out with a new series recently, but I don't know how much better it is.
And while I'm not saying the books are anything great, they're still a far cry from the movie imo.
I'm a bit sick of its narratives around sexuality and state, apart from that I really liked the books, but HATED the movie.
Been a long time since I read them. What were the narratives around sexuakity and state?
Roran and Katrina have this weird martial 'A man needs to protecc' and tradwife dynamic.
Eragon is somewhat a minor while try-harding to flirt with Arya who is superhuman even to Eragon as a Rider. It is not out of character, but it really confused me when I read it as a teen.
Nasuada is a glorified dictator. Islanzadi, Hrothgar, Orik and Arya are glorified superhuman dictators. Human civilians have no agency and the great magic system even further cements that (Dwarfs have gods, Elves have the forest and their magic, while human magic doesn't seem to aggregate to create a check on rulers).
I just re-read them last year. What narrative are you talking about? Is it to do with Eragon not understanding that heβs a teenager and he shouldnβt hit on the elf princess who is literally 80 years older than him?
Arya is not a viable partner for him for at least another five to ten years, IMHO actually for like 20-30 years. Eragon is still a displaced peasant with power not seen for millenia and Arya is a monarch of a superhumanity, who was stuffed with knowledge and experience since birth while having a very different mind. Eragon might not even fully understand yet how relationships work and how truly different elves are.
Roran's martial masculinity and Katrina's clicheed submission, Sloan's power trip etc.
I think the whole point was that Eragon wasn't right for Arya, I thought that was quite refreshing and a pretty important message for adolescents. It's a pretty big deal, imo that they don't end up together at the end, and eragon has to get over it. I think thats an original part of an overall cliche but enjoyable book. I do agree with roram and Katrina's plot though.