Eragon as a Sociopath

[The Sixth Wizard]

Hi everyone, how's it going?

I found this article just now. Not only did it satisfy me by really demolishing Christopher Paolini's Brisingr, (and really, I need not go into detail about what an absolutely shockingly awful failure his latest book was; not to mention the millions in retch-inducing royalties he receives for it! ) the article also had some interesting stuff in there about the relationship between Frodo and Gollum, so it deserves posting here.

Rob Oakes apparently also wrote a scathing review of Brisingr, here.


Just in case you're too lazy to click the link, here's the final paragraph of the article:

Tolkien may have written in perilous times when the flame of light and wisdom appeared to sputter and there were armies at the gate. But as the events of September 11 and the 2003 Iraq War show, there are still threats to our culture and democracy. This time, though, they are internal. We are not threatened by exterior conquest, but by the risk of losing our souls as we attempt to provide for our security. In that struggle, Eragon, Eldest and Brisingr will not help. Paolini reduces questions of good and evil to points of convenience. He attempts to show that sometimes genocide is justified; it’s okay to co-opt justice in the name of vigilantism; and that murder can be acceptable if it is convenient enough. In the struggle to keep civilization’s collective soul, why would we emulate a hero who has already lost his?

edit* You know what, this paragraph is cool too:

In Brisingr, however, we are presented with another person. Eragon has little mercy or understanding for anyone around him (either friend or foe). This trend only gets worse as the novel progresses. Steadily, we proceed from actions which are merely foolish to those which are profoundly disturbing. Consider how Eragon acts in the first few hundred pages of Brisingr. In the opening chapters, Eragon commits genocide. He later circumvents justice in order to condemn and abandon a man in the desert. Last, he kills a child in cold blood while the boy is begging for mercy. In this essay, we will look at these three scenarios in detail and show that Eragon has lost his way, his conscience and his soul.

On other matters, I have not been to the Downs since, what does that say ... April? How ya been?

[The Might]

I'll read the full article after I'm done eating and will edit this post, just wanted to post my thoughts on the second passage you quoted.

I never really liked Paolini, because to me, he always was just a worthless copy of Tolkien with some elements of Star Wars and Dune thrown in as well, with no real originality whatsoever. He joins the ranks of many such authors who publish books on elves, trolls and orcs here in Germany.

The only thing that was remarkable was his age, I mean at 16, I can well understand why he wrote the way he wrote. But now with 25... I am really shocked and would have expected more from him. I have not read the book - nor do I plan to - but if indeed what is described there does happen in the book... very poor performance, Mr. Paolini.

OK, now I'm actually quite disturbed by this. The passage summing it up sounded bad but some parts, especially the treatment of Sloan and of the child are really... evil.

To conclude, I dare say that Túrin has nothing on Eragon when it comes to evil deeds.

[Laurinquë]

Great link The Sixth Wizard! That is an exceptional essay. I too have been liking those books less and less as of late; the actions of both Eragon and the Varden are really getting out of hand. Bunch of nutters.

And for an admirer of Tolkien, Paolini has a remarkably poor grasp of what Tolkien's works are really about. He should consider doing less blatant plagiarism (It's repulsive) and more moral and ethics analysis. His books have turned from semi-literature (well, ok they were never really literature) to an extended horror flick - one glorified blood-bath after another.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Wait, we're criticising the guy for copying Tolkien, then complaining because he's not following Tolkien's moral code?

Seems obvious to me that this Eragon guy's all about taking names. Let him be; it's refreshing.

[Mnemosyne]

I think the problem that I have with Paolini's approach is not so much that he presents a different moral code from Tolkien as that it appears so far that Eragon's actions have no consequences which one might expect from what he's done. Sometimes, especially if you're in a position of power, you can get away for a time with doing things poorly, especially if your world operates out of a mindset of "the end justifies the means." However, looking at real life, if the means involve doing something that could be remotely construed as morally wrong, after the End happens and all is well some of those things will come back to bite you in the butt. (Just look at the debate still surrounding the bombing of Nagasaki.)

There are plenty of better fantasy books out there that operate off a different moral setting from Tolkien--His Dark Materials and especially A Wizard of Earthsea come to mind. Even Harry Potter's stress on ingenuity, intelligence, and luck instead of plain old hard work differs in this respect. What makes them better than the Eragon books is not that they're closer to Tolkien, but that they still follow the internal laws of reality: actions have consequences, and minor characters are actual people, never plot devices to be discarded by the wayside when the protagonist or the author has no more use for them. (Well, except for JKR's killing spree in Book 7.)