Let us all take a moment to reflect on certain, familiar storyline that I’m sure many of us will recognize without much prompting:
• A young farm boy meets an old and wise mentor who hints at having a mystical past.
• The mentor tells the farm boy that he too shares this mystical power.
• The farm boy flees from pursuing forces with his mentor after his family is murdered.
• The farm boy is trained in the ways of combat and mysticism by his mentor.
• A scruffy, adventurous character is introduced who travels with them.
• Together, they save a princess from a terrible prison, where the old mentor meets his fate.
• The princess leads the remainder of the team (as well as the enemy) to a hidden location that houses a rebellious force that stands to challenge an oppressive and decidedly evil government entity ruled by a half-insane man that is out to corrupt or destroy the farm boy.
• The farm boy is called to a mysterious forest psychically by the last of their ancient, knightly order.
• The farm boy studies under the tutelage of the master as his friends proceed to have their own adventures.
Sound familiar? Of course it does. It’s the story line of Christopher Paolini’s Eragon – the first book of the Inheritance Cycle.
Why? What did you think I was talking about?
While Paolini’s debut novel series certainly contained many, many, many tropes that I found myself very fond of, the story as a whole was a direct and none-too-subtle rip-off of Star Wars. Many have said that Star Wars itself was a rip-off of classical Greek monomyth story structures – which may be true, but at least George Lucas had the courtesy to not entirely retell a story that already existed.
The fact of the matter is, reading Eragon and its sequel, Eldest, shows that the entire storyline was just ripped and reset into a medieval atmosphere. Star Wars with metal swords, magic, demons, dragons, and demihumans.
I honestly did enjoy the Eragon and Eldest novels, but I have no intention of reading the third book and forward. I figure that re-watching Return of the Jedi will pretty much fill the rest of the story out.
For these reasons, I was never able to fully respect Paolini as a serious writer. This may be because he was very young when he began the series, and was only 19 when Eragon was published.
Interestingly enough, Christopher Paolini is almost exactly 1 month older than I am. Looking back at some of the drivel I wrote in my teenage years makes it easy for me to relate to the guy on some fundamental level. I might even be willing to give him a second chance if and when he moves on from Inheritance into a new series of novels.
But, for now, I will have to settle for the vague illusion of good storytelling by mixing in science fiction tropes with fantasy tropes. Good luck on your future endeavors, Mr. Paolini.
Tropes Of Sci-Fi & Fantasy 