Eragon

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TheIrishPatriot
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Re: Eragon

Post by TheIrishPatriot » Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:09 am

VZShadowRain wrote:Errrrm... Brisingr... Wtf kind of a word is that and where does its grammar come from. 'r' right after a 'g...' seriously, wtf was he thinking? How could he have made a bigger idiot out of himself?

Ugh, i'm so glad we don't have a bunch of Paolini fanbois...
Uh oh.....I have an r after a d to end a word......*Goes to writer's rehab*
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Re: Eragon

Post by VZBushkiller20 » Thu Jan 31, 2008 12:44 pm

Actually...brisingr (God I despise that title...) is an adaption of the ancient norse word fire, so he didn't just pull it out of thin air (doesn't make it any less retarded.)

And no, he didn't introduce the magic for no reason. It's because of the cliche of discovering power under stress. What better time to do that then when being attacked?

Anyway...The reason Eragon is so terrible isn't because of the plagiarism or cliches...it is terrible because Paolini did those things...and didn't do them well. If his prose was better and he was inconsistent, would anybody have cared that it was a mixture of every story Paolini has ever read? No. It's because every single time some development should occur, Paolini writes a paragraph and moves on. None of his characters are characters, they are pieces of cardboard with paint splattered on to give the illusion of characters.

"Characters are born from necessity" - Paolini

That's 100% wrong. If a character is born from necessity, they will not be real. By using characters in that way, they are no longer characters but instead are plot devices. The only characters that escape this are the eccentric ones, like Nasuada and Angela (Angela is based off a real person so she doesn't count). I've also liked murtagh because he was never around, leaving mystery. And then Paolini had to go and make him Eragon's scratching post at the end of Eldest.
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Re: Eragon

Post by TheIrishPatriot » Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:49 pm

I just....make characters.
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Re: Eragon

Post by VZBushkiller20 » Thu Jan 31, 2008 4:45 pm

Out of necessity? If you do that your characters will be every bit as dry and unemotional as the cast of Eragon. You should not insert yourself into your characters, but you should let your characters tell you what will happen. You need to be able to place yourself into the situation and imagine how, if you were that character, you would react.
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Re: Eragon

Post by TheIrishPatriot » Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:54 pm

No, I just....make characters. Not out of need for one, not for the plot, I just....make characters. I don't have an overload of characters, I just like making new people.
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Re: Eragon

Post by Daryll-The-Damned » Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:38 pm

TheIrishPatriot wrote:No, I just....make characters. Not out of need for one, not for the plot, I just....make characters. I don't have an overload of characters, I just like making new people.
... Good lord man, why are you so similar to me. <_<
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Re: Eragon

Post by TheIrishPatriot » Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:23 pm

Because I'm your clone? Haven't we established this already?
Authors the age of like... 24 usually aren't too successful...
We'll just see about that. :P
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Re: Eragon

Post by Echonian » Fri Feb 01, 2008 1:08 am

If you didn't make characters out of neccesity, you wouldn't ever HAVE any characters that you needed for your story. I believe that you can plan out a character in advance and still make them a "real" character if you were to do it right. The problem is when people push this too far. And they have to fit into the story completely, and be believable. But any book you can think of creates characters for the plot and then uses them afterwards. This is a truth. And authors often think of them in advance.

A part of making a great character would be them fitting in, but you will never get anywhere in a story without characters in them (unless its a 1 character novel...), and every character has to be created out of this neccesity to advance the plot eventually.
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Re: Eragon

Post by TargetPractice » Fri Feb 01, 2008 10:23 am

Why is it you have to make a stupid thread of how gay eragon is EVERY time Irish?

It's kinda annoying

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Re: Eragon

Post by Loki » Fri Feb 01, 2008 11:47 am

Because he has nothing else to do but bash Eragon.
Let's do what comes naturally
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Re: Eragon

Post by TheIrishPatriot » Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:04 pm

Echonian wrote:If you didn't make characters out of neccesity, you wouldn't ever HAVE any characters that you needed for your story. I believe that you can plan out a character in advance and still make them a "real" character if you were to do it right. The problem is when people push this too far. And they have to fit into the story completely, and be believable. But any book you can think of creates characters for the plot and then uses them afterwards. This is a truth. And authors often think of them in advance.

A part of making a great character would be them fitting in, but you will never get anywhere in a story without characters in them (unless its a 1 character novel...), and every character has to be created out of this neccesity to advance the plot eventually.
When we say "out of necessity", it's typically to FIT the plot, thus, the characters are as Bush said, dry, and unemotional. Like say my main character was in prison. BWARZING, out of necessity, there is a fellow prisoner who helps him out! See? That character is never going to be truly 3-D, because he was created FOR the plot. Does that make sense? And when I say I just make characters, I don't have characters just floating around, they all have found their purposes.

Edit: Eragon thread everytime? One on the old forum, one on this one. Are two threads that annoying?
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Re: Eragon

Post by VZBushkiller20 » Fri Feb 01, 2008 1:46 pm

Irish clarified my point nicely, Echo. Necessity doesn't mean "Oh I need to have a main character and his friends." Necessity is just using them to advance the plot despite never having been introduced before (Generally by using them as a deus ex machina in the process). Because this is an Eragon thread...I'll give you an example. When Eragon is being chased by the Ra'zac in the first book, he's about to be killed when suddenly Murtuagh appears and rescues him. None of the dialog between characters seems real. It's all forced to fit the plot, and the author's presence is evident.
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Re: Eragon

Post by TargetPractice » Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:44 pm

It's not that two threads are that annoying Irish, its just that the fact you seem to HAVE to bash on Eragon and bring it up around us, I don't particularly find seeing the bashing on Eragon all the time too enjoyable, I'm not saying I like Eragon I'm just saying I don't care to see the griping and whining about such a horrible book it is

You have established that, just no need to keep goin on about it...

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Re: Eragon

Post by TheIrishPatriot » Fri Feb 01, 2008 6:24 pm

Ok, I'm a malicious, hate-filled, evil man who has no life? We cool with that now? Nobody else seems too pissed that I loathe it.

And Eragon is a prime example for what not to do, so I use that often. I also keep on bringing it up because of the humorous updates (Brisingrhax!).
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Re: Eragon

Post by Panda_of_Doom » Sat Feb 02, 2008 12:45 am

Eragon represents a perceived injustice within the literary system for many writers aspirant, including, it seems, Irish and possibly Bush.

Why? To put it nicely, Mr Paolini sucks. He's not a good writer. This isn't opinion ... he doesn't practice good rules of writing, or deviate from them in a goal-oriented, well-structured, intentional fashion. His invented "language" has so many holes in it that almost anyone can recognize its artificiality without trying. He fails to introduce any original concepts or plot elements or really interesting characters, and his writing is not exactly Shakespeare. I could elaborate, or touch on other ways he fails, but the specifics are not the point.

His end result is just another dime-a-dozen fantasy rag. It's not bad per se, but it's absolutely nothing special, and it most certainly falls in the lower half of the genre. It's really only marginally publishable.

Despite this, Paolini is not only published (thanks in large part to his parents), but is enjoying considerable popularity and has a sizeable following. He's getting a movie made. He's getting a lot of money and publicity. And he really doesn't deserve any of it.

Compare this with the thousands of far more skilled authors of all ages struggling daily to catch the eye of a publishing firm. There are many people who've written fifty books better than Eragon who nonetheless labor in complete obscurity, without so much as a dime for their work. It's easy to understand why people have such venom for Paolini and his books, when you see the situation from their perspective.

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