Talk:Eragon/Archive 2

message: There has been much debate over whether incorporating Elves and Dwarves similar to Tolkien's is derivative or respectful. It has also been pointed out that many names in Eragon resemble those in Tolkien's work, including 
*Arya - Arwen, Arda. Um, how about Arya from 'A Song of Ice and Fire'?
*Ardwen - Arwen
*Isenstar - Isengard
*Mithrim - mithril - Myths rim
*Eragon - Aragorn (but also almost identical to "dragon") --HEY! PAOLINI MADE ERAGON SIMILAR TO DRAGON ON PURPOSE!
*Angrenost - Angrenost, the Sindarin name for Isengard
*Morgothal - Morgoth - More goths
*Elessari - Elessar
*Furnost - Fornost
*Hadarac Desert - Harad Desert
*Melian - Melian - Me lion <-- (A more intelligent response would be "The Melian Dialogues" from Thucydides "History of the Peloponnesian War", c. 431 B.C.)
*Vanilor - Valinor - vanilla lore
*Eridor - Eriador
*Imiladris - Imladris
*Undin - Fundin - Undone
Additionally, Paolini's Beor mountains are named based on the word "Beorn", which is another word for bear. In The Hobbit, there is a character known as Beorn, who has the ability to transform into a bear. There is a character named Beor in Tolkien's Silmarillion.  Coincidentally, Angelina is a word derived from Angel and is therefore unoriginal.  On the map of Alagaësia, the spelling of the place name Melian is identical to the name of the character Melian the Maia of Tolkien's The Silmarillion. The Grey Folk, said to be the first few magical beings resemble the Sindarin, who are the Grey Elves - which in turn copies the Greys (as in the alien type). The 'Lonely Mountain' Utgard in Eragon is thought to be based on the Lonely Mountain Erebor of the Lord of the Rings.  These are a few examples of what is believed to be a wider occurrence.  I, however, am highly critical of these criticisms
Yet another criticism is that the plot closely resembles that of the original Star Wars saga. Characters are also similar, down to Brom who is supposedly the last of his order. Brom's sacrifice to save Eragon resembles that of Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. The beginning is also extremely similar: A servant of an evil emperor attacks, with an army at his disposal, a convoy bearing an object of power to a rebellion against the Empire. The servant captures the convoy and its leader, but the leader (a princess, no less) sends the object away in hopes that it will fall into the hands of a wise old wizard, who is the last of his kind. The object is found by a poor farm boy, whose family (not parents but uncle) is killed as a result, leaving him nothing to stay behind for. He joins the wizard on a quest, as well as a rogue who has no love for the "empire". They save the princess, then the three flee to rebels. This could be used to describe the first Star Wars movie, and no one would know the difference. In Eldest, the farmboy leaves the rebels after they have just fought a costly battle, to train with a wise old hermit in a forest.  He trains and undergoes a life changing experience, and later participates in another great battle. He duels with an enemy, and learns a terrible secret about his family (Father/Brother and Father). As well as this, the colours of the three dragon eggs, red, blue and green, are similar to the main colours of lightsabers, which in turn copies Streetlights and The Muppets.  Note that lightsabers could also be purple, and that Galbatorixes dragon is black. Broms dragon was orange, and some dragons are brown.
Some people also refer to the famous fantasy novel, Earthsea. Earthsea's concept of magic, that there is a ultimate language that all beings are based on, and magic can be conjured by uttering those language, is repeated in Eragon.  Word based magic is also repeated in Harry Potter, which books are extremely unoriginal.  Note that Ursula K. Leguin, who wrote Earthsea, was unoriginal to start with when she based the magic off of Odins magic.
Additionally, the bond between dragon and human is similar to the one between daemon and human in His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman.  But such conclusions are ridiculous considering that Daemons are part of a humans soul, wheras dragons attach themselves to a persons soul.  In addition daemons are shape changers, and everybody has them as opposed to a select few.
Also the way Eragon talks to Saphira is very similar to the way that the charicters in Animorphs can communicate while they are morphed, ie: they use their mind and it becoms harder over distance.</blockquote>  Once again, such conclusions are silly - telepathy works like this in almost all telepathy related fiction.  Including Norse Mythology, which JRR Tolkien ruthelessly copied.  Lets see how long it takes for my post to get deleted.... by communists!
*There are a load of criticisms in this Amazon.com Discussion Forum.  Read it and have a laugh.
 
Would this be a good source? Kate 23:31, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Could the Tolkien estate sue if they wanted?  Cause I would consider it.  Rmt2m 00:02, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Derivative nature of the books

message: Is the novel first published in 2002 or 2003? Grey Shadow 04:15, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category:2002 or 2003 novels 

message: There needs to be a link at a top that will direct people to the video game too. I can't find out how to do it, but I'll keep looking.--Spyderchan 18:09, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  done--Spyderchan 18:29, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  video game  

message: I'm stripping down the character descriptions because many characters have their own articles and some descriptions have information already provided by the plot summary.--Spyderchan 10:07, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Character section 

message: Why is there a section that lists fan forums?  Is this really relevant to the article?
:"Links normally to be avoided" says no, unless "mandated by the article." I'm not sure what that means, but i don't think any of those forums are particularly important.Spyderchan 07:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forums Section? 

message: If anybody wants to complain about what I did, here's my explanation.
"There has been much criticism of Eragon, regarding everything from word usage to the marketing techniques (critics deride the labelling of the author as a "prodigy" or "wunderkind"). The book's most frequent criticism is that it uses far too many clichés. Paolini employs stock characters, such as Elves, Dwarves, and a pseudo-orcish race known as Urgals, complete with an elite sect known as the Kull, comparable to Saruman's Uruk-hai. Many believe that it is a marvel that Eragon is on bookshelves, given that the publisher of the book was the author's parents. However, after seeing the success of Eragon, Alfred A. Knopf bought the book rights from the Paolinis."
I put this in criticism; it sure sounds like that. Also the first sentence sounds like weasel words, while the last 2 seem pointless.
''
"Entertainment Weekly lambasted the sequel, Eldest, calling it a "Tolkien knockoff," saying it owed another debt to Star Wars (implying the first did as well), and that overall it is "mind-numbingly silly," finally giving the book a rating of D+ http://www.ew.com/ew/article/review/book/0,6115,1095866_5_0_,00.html. Later, they named it the number one worst book of 2005, calling it a "700-page Tolkien wannabe http://www.ew.com/ew/article/commentary/0,6115,1142746_5_0_,00.html."''
Remember that this article talks about Eragon, not its sequel. I would rather delete this review altogether because it has no bearing on this book, but I put it in a section on the reviews of Eldest.
I replaced Criticism from the previous title; it seems more accurate.
 Even positive reviews of the books can not help but note how derivative the texts are, such as this quote from Kirkus's review of Eldest, noting that it is "suffused with purple prose and faux-archaic language," and is a "patchwork of dialogue, characters and concepts pulled whole cloth from the fantasy canon ."
Now this sounds like complete POV. Moreover, it isn't even a criticism of Eragon but of its sequel, as I said above. I deleted it, with good reason.
School Library Journal's review of Eragon was positive, despite admitting that "Eragon does not approach the depth, uniqueness, or mastery of J. R. R. Tolkien's works, and sometimes the magic solutions are just too convenient for getting out of difficult situations," but its review of Eldest has grown more negative, noting that "The plot--indeed, most of the fantasy conventions--is heavily inspired by Tolkien, McCaffrey, and especially George Lucas," and that it will find a fan-base though "there's nothing particularly original here ."
This review was already talked about in the previous section and basically repeats it. Again, there's a deleted attack on Eragon's sequel but not Eragon itself. These scathing reviews belong in the Eldest article or the one about the series.
Commonsensemedia, a family-friendly review site, was particularly scathing, stating that, "It's not long, however, before they begin to notice the long-winded descriptions, the clichés and hackneyed dialogue, and the derivative nature of the plot--straight out of Star Wars by way of The Lord of the Rings, with bits of other great fantasies thrown in here and there. That this is a great achievement for one so young is undeniable, and many children will love it. It certainly ranks right up there with other derivative, overblown fantasies written by adults, such as Terry Brooks's Sword of Shannara series."
This section belongs in reviews, and it was moved there.
Both reviews are still briefly mentioned in the criticism section.
Lastly, the section which compares the languages of Tolkien and Eragon seems like original research, although it's too good to be deleted.Hadoren 04:38, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Explaining my Edit 

message: Why is there a fansites section for links?  With perhaps the exception of Shurtugal.com (and even that seems iffy to me), none of them add anything to the article or provide sources for information or anything like that.  I propose that they be removed.
:I agree, but people would probably start adding them again anyways.--Spyderchan 03:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why are fansites listed? 

message: I came to the page by accident and freely admit I know nothing about this book having never read it. However, when I read the synopsis (spoiler) I found the information confusing, overwordy and needed editing. So that's what I did. 
I cut a number of repeats, changed syntax to help remove ambiguity and cut parts that didn't help a reader's understanding. I would have cut the thing down more but I didn't know enough about the plot to be able to do this (although I did check on other sites and tehy said the "stone"/egg was found in woods - perhaps in the mountains). It probably need someone to come in who knows the plot and rehack it.
I also put some line breaks in as it was heard to read the solid text. Candy 03:03, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Synopsis editing 

message: It seems someone is changing Christopher Paolinis name to Christopher Penis.  As of now, I have changed it back.--Wai June Lau 22:43, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name Changing 

message: Considering we have articles about the novel, character, licensed film and videogame.  That's a bit of a mouthful for a disambiguation notice....  --Stratadrake 03:06, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eragon (disambiguation) ? 

message: takes place inside of a mans hairy anus
is this accurate? if it is, man that's some wasted 150mil. --Suleyman Habeeb 18:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was just some guy thinking that he's funny.  I have reverted the vandalism.--DarthBinky 18:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, man. I really was having a heart attack after I saw the vandalism. I only heard about the series and the movie on tv etc. so I had no idea it was vandalism. --Suleyman Habeeb 13:56, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  accuracy? 

message: "The game, after being released, is an RPG game where it starts at the very beginning with Arya."
I don't understand this sentence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.189.146.119 (talk) 21:40, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  bad sentence, "video game" section 

message: Under the "Unseen Characters" section, Selena was defined as "Murtagh's and Eragon's mother".  Selena is revealed as Eragon's mother in Eragon, but not Murtagh's.  I suspect it is revealed in Eldest, which I am reading now.... Thanks!  I suspected it already.  I made the change to read just "Eragon's mother". Deannicholson 23:34, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spoiler within a Spoiler! 

message: I would like to know why Saphira has feathered wings - when dragons should tradionally have membrained wings and if I am not mistaken "Eragon" states that whilst he was flying Saphira, he made a comment on her membrained wings.  I am very disappointed that Saphira looks like a giant duck with an elongated sausage neck.  
I am enjoying the book, however, after seeing photos I don't want to spoil it by going to see the movie.
Anyone else feel the same way ?
HAVE YOU SEEN PAOLINI??? HE LOOKS LIKE FAILURE.
Guys, uh... seems a bit impolite to comment on Paolini's looks... (To the first comment) And about the movie, yeah, it does look weird, but I give them points for originality on the Special Effects. A dragon with feathered wings is something new... at least as far as I know, but yeah, the movie does look pretty different from the book (Blond Arya?!). Anyway, this page is supposed to be just for discussion on the article, so back to topic... Does anyone know if that was just an artistic decision, or if there was another reason (such as budget, marketing reasons, Special Effects limitations, etc.)? ==Hail Anti-Shur'tugal!== 169.229.121.94 03:17, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  SAPHIRA 

message: They should be called the "Ring Wars" Trilogy. "Part II- The Fellowship of the Empire"    [It's says it's unsigned, but my name is Darren_Trent] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.140.167.213 (talk) 20:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Renameing the books

message: Is this just my computer, or other's also?  It's very frusterating.
--I Will Endure 22:35, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eragon (character) redirects to Luke Skywalker?