How does /lit/ feel about this series?
By kids for kids senpai
Do your duty and remember to sage, report, and hide Eragonposters
>>7521411
gtfo
we're not doing this again
this shit sin't even arguable
at least start a harry potter thread for serious arguments
>>7521411
It's bad.
Calling something a "cycle" instead of a "series" sounds really pseudointellectual.
I must admit with utmost certainty this is one of the worst books I ever read.
The politics of dwarves, although unanimously referred to as one of the best features is brushed off and either disregarded or ignored by the characters Christopher Paolini depicted as the “smart ones”; Nasuada is exhausted because of it, Roran and Arya are fed up with its inherent “waste of time”, Blödhgarm, Oromis, Dathedr and most of the elves don't speak of it or in an implied bad way and the main protagonist himself repeatedly expresses its boredom and disdain. On the other hand, politicians like Orik, all of the dwarven clan members, Orrin and the Varden intelligentsia are shown as slow, mean, greedy, illogical, careless and disconnected from the reality fools, often having faith in ridiculous religion-like beliefs and being inapt to change their mind.
Ironically, the aformentioned supposedly intelligent characters never show it off, either expressing it textually—“the dragon gave clear, logical arguments”; “the chief explained his wit, well-thought plan”, and so on—or, particularly for the elves, suggesting it by remaining silent and having a strange look. They never tell anything notable—on the opposite, they are nearly always stating the evidence to the point one human character ended up underlining their rhetoric's obviousness—and instead “act smartly”, walking and fighting in an animalesque way and regularly standing around the others while starring in a “mystical” manner. The four tomes share this steady, naive description about them and until the very end introduce new elvish characters with animal comparisons and bad sugarcoated prose.
The author seems to have an irrational adoration for dragons and elves and the frequent, flowery descriptions of the male anatomy and the typical male characteristics the creatures have graze with homoeroticism. The elf society is an incoherent anarcho-monarchy with hundreds of logical holes and seems to be, gradually along humans', dragonriders' and dragons' ones the most authoritarian, although the stupidest races according to the writer, namely the dwarves and urgals, adopt a kind of democratic system with elected chiefs, representativity, administrative level and collegial decision-making. Dwarves are also the only community to have a legal system mentioned. A dragonrider isn't elected, has authority in any country and can shortcut the law he himself decretes. Dragons are naturally over every elf because of their implication during the war yet the first ones don't have to recognize nor give any reparations to the dwarves they unilateraly attacked, robbed and killed in the past despite they occupy the land before the others.
>>7521608
Except Arya's poetry evoked quickly before the Agaetí Blödhren, not a single elf is depicted or suggested producing a literary work in the 2,800 pages. In fact, they're only known to create a high-quality culture because Christopher Paolini literally said so. Elves are never working and their sole accomplishments are merely referred to by a third party, whether it is an elvish monk creating a spell or another one finding out what coral is. On another hand, dragons also never demonstrate the level of erudition/intelligence they're told to have and, on the contrary, often express primitive and condescendant behavior, proneness to anger bursts—as mentioned by Nasuada during her first encounter with Blödhgarm—and emotional-driven decisions, disdain for curiosity, boredom for speaking or thinking and skillfulness in logically irrelevant activities like riddles yet are hold to have the keenest mental capacities.
The quest hardly makes sense and the protagonist doesn't even clearly know what he is doing till the middle of the fourth book. Galbatorix and his reign never appear unfair or chaotic—in straight contrast with what the author regularly told us through minor characters—besides used tropes and the spectre of slavery—a conception of freedom that dragons not having to respect the laws despite making them, ruling over elected officials without being invested to or new queen distributing large swaths of earth to minor nobles don't bother the slightest—that is never felt but once again merely evoked. He is ultimately portrayed as an intelligent person willing to care about cultural heritage or fighting against the suggested excess of power elves had back then on dragonriders. Less suggested now that two of the three ones are away from the country for life and the remaining is the elvish supreme ruler.
I don't even want to talk about the magical system or the—nonexistent—prose. It really fed me up. How did I manage to read the entire series? I still don't know.
I know 4chan doesn't care about feminist critique or whatever, but holy shit, he describes the physical appearance every woman in that book in detail constantly, what they're wearing, what they look like, all the attributes of their body, et al., while the male characters just sort of show up and he leaves it to you. It's so lazy: he does nothing to camouflage the fact that he has a huge boner for all of his own lady characters.
Is op 12
>>7521555
Agreed
It's either done by the publisher/author to make it stand out somehow, or the author comes from some strange town where that's what they say about all series
If it wasn't for mum and dad owning a publishing house, he'd have gone nowhere. Paolini is a complete hack.
>>7521411
Shitty, immature, unoriginal fantasy with mediocre prose.
It is impressive, though, considering that the author was only 16 when he started. Props to him for making that much money by writing at that age. However, his writing didn't improve as he got older. He still writes like that same semi-talented 16 y/o today, and is more long-winded about it.
>>7521621
Who does´nt have a huge boner for all of their own lady characters?
>>7521555
Can someone explain why an author would choose Cycle rather than Series?
Yes I'm that dumb.
>>7522738
Because it's less common and sounds smarter. I think it tends to be used in retrospect to classify great works of literature (many of Shakespeare's plays are grouped in "cycles"), so it sounds more authoritative and fancy.
Objectively one of the worst series of all time. Worse than harry potter, hunger games, John Green stuff and all other YA shit.
>>7522750
While I completely understand what you are saying, what perplexes me is the fact that a cycle implies that, once you reach the end, it starts up in some fashion all over again.
I'm guessing it's because back in the day when books were rare, once you read from start to finish on one series of books, there's nothing else to do but read them again or get a new series?
>>7522832
I'm not sure, my best guess is that a cycle/circle is something that is "connected". I agree it's kind of weird and I would be interested if any etymology buffs could shed any light on this.
Superior series coming through.
>>7521613
>The quest hardly makes sense and the protagonist doesn't even clearly know what he is doing till the middle of the fourth book. Galbatorix and his reign never appear unfair or chaotic—in straight contrast with what the author regularly told us through minor characters—besides used tropes and the spectre of slavery—a conception of freedom that dragons not having to respect the laws despite making them, ruling over elected officials without being invested to or new queen distributing large swaths of earth to minor nobles don't bother the slightest—that is never felt but once again merely evoked. He is ultimately portrayed as an intelligent person willing to care about cultural heritage or fighting against the suggested excess of power elves had back then on dragonriders. Less suggested now that two of the three ones are away from the country for life and the remaining is the elvish supreme ruler.
What did he mean by this?
In all seriousness, I understood almost nothing past the first sentence (and I read the book).
Please try again.
>>7522730
Your apostrophe went rogue.
>>7521411
It's the plot of star wars set in middle earth. Fuck that unoriginal plagiaristic piece of shit series.
it's one of the most patrician series
all the haters ITT need to >>>/reddit/
It's star wars: fantasy edition
