The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini
Firstly, I’d like to apologize for any minute details I mess up, I read this series about 5 years ago. This means that all of my information and emotions surrounding the plots and characters are from my middle school self so maybe I understood something miserably wrong. I’m hoping to reread the series at some point. Secondly, I decided to begin with this series because I only just recently read the The Fork, The Witch, and The Worm, and my friend just finished the last book for the first time, and we had been discussing the characters, plot, and book in general. The Inheritance Cycle is one that helped me through a tough time and lingered even after I finished the books. It’s helped me make two of my closest friends and I believe that it’s one of the reasons that I love fantasy so much. Paolini was able to write a book in a made up land where the protagonist’s best friend is a dragon and make it not only relatable to his readers, but very real and tangible. No matter what scene, I was able to see each characters face, know in detail their surroundings, and have a firm understanding of the atmosphere due to Paolini’s meticulous writing style. I watch what I read like a movie, I can see the crack in the ceiling or almost hear the conversation my protagonist is spying on, and when I find an author who creates an atmosphere so real and detailed, I get pretty excited. The characters are also another aspect that is so crucial to me when reading. I loved Eragon and Saphira, I could so easily relate to Eragon and really just enjoyed a loving and supporting relationship where neither party was in constant protagonist drama with the other. I liked how each character carried what at times can be a burden that comes with who the are. Paolini did a great job in distinctly showing the different personalities in the races of Alegasia. While at times I was reminded a little too much of Lord of the Rings, it was very important in the plot of the series to show the humanity of characters like Eragon, Murtagh, and Nasuada, the more sophisticated wisdom of the dragons, and the coldness of the elves. But it was these very things that led to issues, created miscommunications, or prevented people from what they wanted. Nasuada’s stubbornness got her into plenty of harrowing situations; Arya could seem too blunt or rude; Glaedr (to me) could be really annoying, he had forgotten the youth of his students and the skills or information that they had yet to learn. I remember loving these characters so much, due to the constant change in location and war time need for characters to constantly been in other parts of the land, we as readers became acquainted with many different people and I loved the diversity of personality and motives and overall blend of chaos and order in the books.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading a series that didn’t have the typical young-adult fiction relationship, where Eragon didn’t get the girl and the girl never actually saw Eragon in that way. (I must say though, I was disappointed for another relationship, my boy Murtagh is so lonely and it makes me sad). To me, the books felt a little more realistic, authentic. There was no forced relationships, the characters were in the middle of a war, and in no way were the personalities of the characters changed from trying to fit into the “perfect person” for the other character.
Lastly, I did enjoy the plot twists and how unexpected many of the books became. I loved the way that Paolini used magic and energy, how it must be used skillfully or too much of it could kill the user. There were so many little things to this series that kept me drawn in, really made me excited for the next book and yelling at the TV screen when the movie was absolutely horrid and incorrect. In general, I enjoyed how real it all felt. Paolini took so much time telling us about the weather and how their war strategy had been planned and discussed until it was no longer relevant, to my 12 year old self, I felt like I knew what planning and strategizing for war was like, I had the same wonder and lack of experience that Eragon did. I loved how my protagonist was a nobody from a town no one had ever heard of, and ended up changing the way the entire country looked and ran.
I apologize for my lack of citations or mentions to a certain situation in the book and for glossing over the plots of the books, I am so afraid of badly messing plot or retelling a scene incorrectly, it’s been far too long since I’ve read this series.
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