Eragon and Inheritance Cycle fanfic

[f0Ri5]

I'm rereading the books while working on mine and I gotta say... man, some parts are rough. Forgivable, given Paolini was only 17 at the time, but it bugs me to see people defending stuff that's just not good. Off the top of my head, the whole story taking place in less than two years is a huge issue. Eragon goes from farmboy who'd never thrown a punch in his life to beating +100 year old elven warriors after a few months of training. He basically end up being one of the top 5 strongest people on the continent in less time than it takes for someone to get a bachelor's degree. And don't even get me started on the ending... even among the countless deus ex machina, galbatorix comitting suicide because he felt bad... i don't even know where to begin critisizing that. It was probably the biggest asspull I've seen in any major work of fiction. Chris built up galbatorix to be basically unbeatable, which is fine, but he was clearly much too pressed trying not to let the good guys take the L. Personally, I would've been fine with that outcome, but it being young adult fantasy, I suppose a 'bad' ending wasn't acceptable, even if it would've made sense. That being said, I'm convinced there was a better way to force the outcome he wanted than what he ended up choosing. Eragon having to leave the continent because.... reasons was also pretty dumb.

It was fine for a casual reread, but you really shouldn't think too hard about what happens.

 

[SmokeRichards]

I seem to recall paonili pulling out some pretty ridiculous numbers of troops out for the battle of the burning plains. I can't remember exactly what the numbers were, but I remember looking at things and going "Man, those are WW2 levels of troop surges", which honestly is pretty ridiculous for what are essentially a bunch of medieval peasants. I also seem to recall the Varden being outnumbered about ten to one in that battle, ballistas being used as anti-personel weapons, the idea that a single ship with a hundred villagers (man of whom weren't fighting) coming up the river could somehow change the tide of an entire battle when tens of thousands of troops are involved...

Personally, I like the inheritance cycle. But it'll always be nostalgia bait for me rather than the enjoyment being on it's literary merits.

It's the sort of stale, boring sandbox I like watching an outsider come in and wreck.

A lot of the problems can be traced back to Eragon, because Eragon is boring. The dude doesn't really have the flaws necessary to make him interesting. Fanfic when it comes to IC is pretty rare, but the stuff I do like tends to replace Eragon with someone who's messed up somehow. Two of them involved Eragon being a shade, and one of them, oh boy, probably shaping up to be my favorite thing ever.

I've always sorta had this daydream in my head about a guardian from Destiny crossing over to the Inheritance cycle, touching an egg, and having that egg decide that the guardian was the person for them. Not just any Guardian mind you, either the guardian, or a guardian that participated in the great ahamkara hunt. It would be super interesting to have a dragon rider who really hates their dragon on principle and more or less refuses to work with the dragon. That, or is very clear that if the dragon doesn't leave them alone, they will restart a little Ahamkara hunt of their own.

And then someone actually started writing that, and what's there is already great. I honestly cant wait to see how that turns out, because a rider!guardian with major Ahamkara issues is going to be traumatic for everyone involved, even the bystanders.

 

[f0Ri5]

I seem to recall paonili pulling out some pretty ridiculous numbers of troops out for the battle of the burning plains. I can't remember exactly what the numbers were, but I remember looking at things and going "Man, those are WW2 levels of troop surges", which honestly is pretty ridiculous for what are essentially a bunch of medieval peasants. I also seem to recall the Varden being outnumbered about ten to one in that battle, ballistas being used as anti-personel weapons, the idea that a single ship with a hundred villagers (man of whom weren't fighting) coming up the river could somehow change the tide of an entire battle when tens of thousands of troops are involved...

Personally, I like the inheritance cycle. But it'll always be nostalgia bait for me rather than the enjoyment being on it's literary merits.

It's the sort of stale, boring sandbox I like watching an outsider come in and wreck.

A lot of the problems can be traced back to Eragon, because Eragon is boring. The dude doesn't really have the flaws necessary to make him interesting. Fanfic when it comes to IC is pretty rare, but the stuff I do like tends to replace Eragon with someone who's messed up somehow. Two of them involved Eragon being a shade, and one of them, oh boy, probably shaping up to be my favorite thing ever.

I've always sorta had this daydream in my head about a guardian from Destiny crossing over to the Inheritance cycle, touching an egg, and having that egg decide that the guardian was the person for them. Not just any Guardian mind you, either the guardian, or a guardian that participated in the great ahamkara hunt. It would be super interesting to have a dragon rider who really hates their dragon on principle and more or less refuses to work with the dragon. That, or is very clear that if the dragon doesn't leave them alone, they will restart a little Ahamkara hunt of their own.

And then someone actually started writing that, and what's there is already great. I honestly cant wait to see how that turns out, because a rider!guardian with major Ahamkara issues is going to be traumatic for everyone involved, even the bystanders.

Click to shrink...

you have some weird preferences but yeah, i still enjoyed the reread. personally i think the characters were ok, i think eragon is pretty flawed if you pay attention to what he says or does. its more him being bailed out by anything and everything, as well as paolini having no sense of what's realistic or not. the handful of villagers bulldowzing galbatorix's army is a good example, yeah. roran becoming a supersoldier just... for no reason. and eragon beating galbatorix in A YEAR when nobody else could do it over a hundred. not the elves, dwarves, urgals... nobody. i cant get over that part.

 

[SmokeRichards]

you have some weird preferences but yeah, i still enjoyed the reread. personally i think the characters were ok, i think eragon is pretty flawed if you pay attention to what he says or does. its more him being bailed out by anything and everything, as well as paolini having no sense of what's realistic or not. the handful of villagers bulldowzing galbatorix's army is a good example, yeah. roran becoming a supersoldier just... for no reason. and eragon beating galbatorix in A YEAR when nobody else could do it over a hundred. not the elves, dwarves, urgals... nobody. i cant get over that part.

Click to shrink...

I wouldn't say I have weird preferences. What I have is a desire to be surprised, and Paonili never really manages that for me. Lets compare and contrast with say... Star Wars.

Luke is a pretty generic farmboy too, but the world he's interacting with, Star Wars, is such an interesting place that it works. Lukes simplicity serves as a grounding point for the audience, and he's backed up by some pretty compelling characters. Han provides some roguish charm, and Darth Vader is a menancing villain.

Alagaseia in comparison is not an interesting place. All things considered, it's pretty generic. As both a writer and a reader, I would describe it as having hidden depths, but needing a very dynamic character to coax those hidden depths to life. You need someone who's interacting with these depths and forcing them to the surface, not sorta bobbing along the way Eragon does. Eragon also lacks the supporting characters that Luke does. Everyone around Eragon really has a stick up their ass, and it makes them feel all the same. There are exceptions, like Angela and Rhunion, but they aren't present enough in the narrative for it to make a real difference. And because Eragon isn't digging enough to bring out these hidden depths, Omoris always remains the wise teacher, Izlandi always remains the haughty queen, Nasuada always remains the more understanding clone of Izlandi, Ajihaad was always the wise military leader, Hrothgar was always the good king- need I go on?

In order to keep a world like this from feeling stale, you either need excellent world building, or excellent characterization, and Paonili is at best okay with both of those things.

Galbatorix is too distant to make a compelling threat, and Murtagh failed to be intimidating at all. Durza was actually excellent, but Paonili had him killed off by the end of the first book and replaced him with Eragon's greatest foe to date, horomones.

What IC really needed was a main character that was capable of aggressively challenging the world itself, forcing the world to adapt or come into conflict with the main character. Someone who can ask "why are we doing this", and if the answer wasn't satisfactory, go "This is stupid. I'm not doing it that way. You can either join me or get left behind."

I hated Roran as a character, but he would've probably been a better main character than Eragon. Roran had no problem challenging the status quo instead of letting other people challenge the status quo for him.

 

[f0Ri5]

I wouldn't say I have weird preferences. What I have is a desire to be surprised, and Paonili never really manages that for me. Lets compare and contrast with say... Star Wars.

Luke is a pretty generic farmboy too, but the world he's interacting with, Star Wars, is such an interesting place that it works. Lukes simplicity serves as a grounding point for the audience, and he's backed up by some pretty compelling characters. Han provides some roguish charm, and Darth Vader is a menancing villain.

Alagaseia in comparison is not an interesting place. All things considered, it's pretty generic. As both a writer and a reader, I would describe it as having hidden depths, but needing a very dynamic character to coax those hidden depths to life. You need someone who's interacting with these depths and forcing them to the surface, not sorta bobbing along the way Eragon does. Eragon also lacks the supporting characters that Luke does. Everyone around Eragon really has a stick up their ass, and it makes them feel all the same. There are exceptions, like Angela and Rhunion, but they aren't present enough in the narrative for it to make a real difference. And because Eragon isn't digging enough to bring out these hidden depths, Omoris always remains the wise teacher, Izlandi always remains the haughty queen, Nasuada always remains the more understanding clone of Izlandi, Ajihaad was always the wise military leader, Hrothgar was always the good king- need I go on?

In order to keep a world like this from feeling stale, you either need excellent world building, or excellent characterization, and Paonili is at best okay with both of those things.

Galbatorix is too distant to make a compelling threat, and Murtagh failed to be intimidating at all. Durza was actually excellent, but Paonili had him killed off by the end of the first book and replaced him with Eragon's greatest foe to date, horomones.

What IC really needed was a main character that was capable of aggressively challenging the world itself, forcing the world to adapt or come into conflict with the main character. Someone who can ask "why are we doing this", and if the answer wasn't satisfactory, go "This is stupid. I'm not doing it that way. You can either join me or get left behind."

I hated Roran as a character, but he would've probably been a better main character than Eragon. Roran had no problem challenging the status quo instead of letting other people challenge the status quo for him.

Click to shrink...

I'm not the kind of reader that needs a unique world to be interested, so I see why we'd disagree on that. Elves, dwarves, dragons, magic, I'm fine with all that stuff. Even the farmboy trope, I have no issue with. For me, it's just the constant stream of things that break my suspension of disbelief that bugs me. granted, i wasnt really much of a fan of any characters aside from maybe brom. murtagh was kinda funny, at least how people describe him online as an 'edgy' character. i honestly dont see what's edgy about him, unless you call stabbing people before they can stab you 'edgy'. but i do agree durza wasnt bad. i almost think paolini killed him off because he wants to keep some mysteries 'under wraps', so to speak. for example, spirits are pretty front and center in the series, as is sorcery, but we never get an idea of how it all works. i think the series suffered for it, especially given how long paolini is taking to release a sequel.

 

[SageOfSixBowls]

I seem to recall paonili pulling out some pretty ridiculous numbers of troops out for the battle of the burning plains. I can't remember exactly what the numbers were, but I remember looking at things and going "Man, those are WW2 levels of troop surges", which honestly is pretty ridiculous for what are essentially a bunch of medieval peasants. I also seem to recall the Varden being outnumbered about ten to one in that battle, ballistas being used as anti-personel weapons, the idea that a single ship with a hundred villagers (man of whom weren't fighting) coming up the river could somehow change the tide of an entire battle when tens of thousands of troops are involved...

Personally, I like the inheritance cycle. But it'll always be nostalgia bait for me rather than the enjoyment being on it's literary merits.

It's the sort of stale, boring sandbox I like watching an outsider come in and wreck.

A lot of the problems can be traced back to Eragon, because Eragon is boring. The dude doesn't really have the flaws necessary to make him interesting. Fanfic when it comes to IC is pretty rare, but the stuff I do like tends to replace Eragon with someone who's messed up somehow. Two of them involved Eragon being a shade, and one of them, oh boy, probably shaping up to be my favorite thing ever.

I've always sorta had this daydream in my head about a guardian from Destiny crossing over to the Inheritance cycle, touching an egg, and having that egg decide that the guardian was the person for them. Not just any Guardian mind you, either the guardian, or a guardian that participated in the great ahamkara hunt. It would be super interesting to have a dragon rider who really hates their dragon on principle and more or less refuses to work with the dragon. That, or is very clear that if the dragon doesn't leave them alone, they will restart a little Ahamkara hunt of their own.

And then someone actually started writing that, and what's there is already great. I honestly cant wait to see how that turns out, because a rider!guardian with major Ahamkara issues is going to be traumatic for everyone involved, even the bystanders.

Click to shrink...

I've been trying to find more Inheritance Cycle fanfics for a while now but haven't had much luck… Could you elaborate a bit on the other two fics you mentioned?

 

[SmokeRichards]

I've been trying to find more Inheritance Cycle fanfics for a while now but haven't had much luck… Could you elaborate a bit on the other two fics you mentioned?

Click to shrink...

Right, so we have No Stars in Sight. Destiny/Inheritance cycle.

What you need to know about Destiny is that there are Warlocks, and Warlocks are basically magic users of the semi-eldritch variety. Sometimes when they look up into the sky, the sky looks back and it's face is screaming and has a lot of teeth. The main Character is a Warlock. You also need to know that there are guardians. Guardians are basically living undead. You can kill them, that's the easy part (in comparison). Making them stay dead? That's That's another thing entirely. You kill them, they shake off the rot and try to kill you again.

Then there are the Ahamkara.

Ahamkara are known as 'wishing dragons'. You can think of them as Monkey's paws. Essentially, Ahamkara feed off the difference between someone's wish and reality. Like, if you wished for a cupcake, well, that's not a big change, so not a lot of energy. If you wished to be king of the world, considerably more change, considerably more energy an Ahamkara could gain. If you wished to become a god... But the problem is Ahamkara aren't exactly friendly. They don't have a concept of morality, and this entire exchange is about them, not you. Their wishes have a way of going bad, and the last one that had to be dealt with in the Destiny-verse basically took an entire city with it... Only she didn't. Riven of a Thousand Voices locked a holy city of the Awoken in a time loop. Every month, the clock resets, and the slaughter begins again, with Riven alive and needing to die. This means that every month, a fireteam needs to be put together to kill her agian, and then the cycle starts anew.

Suffice to say, Ahamkara are very dangerous and very powerful, capable of changing even the laws of reality with the right wish.

Enter stage right, our MC. Our MC was the one who initally dealt with Riven of a Thousand Voices, and he actually lost his friend to her. Death has a different meaning when you and your friends are immortal guardians that can't die. It's especially traumatic for people who aren't meant to die to expeirence death in their lives. Ikharos's friend was literally wished away by Riven of a Thousand Voices.

There's a lot of lore involved here, but basically Ikharos crash lands on Alagaesia on Vroenguard, and he has an army with him. His presence draws out all sorts of Paracausal nasties that have been sorta lurking around Alagaesia whiling the millenia away as they wait for the prison that is Alagaesia to fail and unleash them onto the wider Destiny-verse.

The main character from Alagaesia so far is actually one of the forsworn called Fomora, who gets a lot of character development here. There's also interactions with the Dragons on Vroenguard. So far, the Alagaesian part of the cast is very much (and understandably) weaker than most of the Destiny cast, mostly becuase the Destiny cast is Ikharos, who is a literal god-killer who's faced and murdered beings who've eaten entire worlds in a metaphorical sense. I've found it very entertaining so far, becuase Fomora is an elf, and Ikharos isn't the only thing that's coming back from the dead in here. One of the major antagonist forces crash landed with Ikharos and is called the 'Scorned'. They are basically Zombies if Zombies were made of a lot of black magic and were actually dangerous.

Understandably, Fomora, being an elf, isn't exactly handling the idea that there are things she can't kill and make stay dead running around in their hundreds.

Ikharos on his part isn't really handling dragons very well, because he's making some very understandable connections between them and Ahamkara. And the Ahamkara were hunted to extinction for very good reason.

I'm not sure if you'll enjoy it as much without a good grasp of Destiny lore, which can be very esoteric at times, but this dude is probably the best writer in the IC fandom right now, and he has a track record of taking stories to their conclusions. This particular story is actually a rewrite of an older, 700k fic story, and I like this version much better.

You'll have to wait for the other story in the morning.

 

[Drak4806]

I read the first 2 books as a kid and really liked them since back then i was super obsessed with dragons but when I got older and reread them along with the other books I realized they were rather shit but that's to be expected from a teen writer who from what I heard ignored offers from professionals to help edit and bounce ideas off.

Still better written than a lot of fanfics I've read but that's not that high of a bar to clear