ok as every inheritance cycle fan knows- the series sucks in a lot of ways and it was such a big interest in my childhood that i’ve literally been wondering for YEARS where things went wrong. until now!!!
(this is gonna be a long post WITH SPOILERS but i will try and keep it as concise as possible.)
disclaimer: it’s been a while since i have read the series so i will miss a lot of things, but these are just some general criticisms.
eragon was a cool story that a lot of people read when they were kids, but unlike iconic media like atla and star wars, hardly anyone who read the series still engages with it. i think part of the reason why there’s only small insular circles that still talk abt the inheritance cycle is that the books had little direction, and for all the potential it had it fell short of having a meaningful and lasting impression.
starting with the elves...there are already problems. i don’t understand how they decided to send arya, an objectively very young elf by their standards and daughter to the queen, was chosen to retrieve and transport the egg to safety. her entire role is as an ambassador, and i’m no political expert, but it makes absolutely zero fucking sense to me that you’d send a diplomatic politician that is the only close (known) family member to the queen of the remnants of their entire race, and decide she is the perfect candidate to complete a mission that has fuck all to do with her job description. which would result potentially in the annihilation of their whole entire community. no offense to the apparently all knowing elves (as repeatedly stated by an author that can’t trust his reader to make accurate conclusions- but that’s another rant) but my first choice for the savior of my race wouldn’t be my city mayors young daughter and her two buddies. and naturally, she is captured by durza bc this was a shitty fucking plan that never would have worked in the first place.
to jump ahead, when we have met murtagh and follow his story alongside eragons, it makes absolutely no sense for him to live to the end of the series. you are telling me, that arya, a politician, royalty, and highly regarded member of the community galbatorix wanted to exterminate was less of a priority than the 18 year old guy that ran away a few months ago? i can’t see how arya was captured, imprisoned, and tortured, all in a completely different city than Uru’baen? when murtagh was taken there directly ?? because... the twins REALLY didn’t like him? like essentially arya, who is way more strategically important to galbatorix, was more of an afterthought than some kid that defected?
considering murtaghs specific role in the narrative is to be a challenge to eragon because he is a dragon rider means that we have to believe, somehow, that galbatorix knew that thorn would hatch for him. and i can swallow that maybe he did know because murtagh was the son of a powerful rider....BUT if this did occur to him why didn’t he introduce murtagh to thorns egg when he believed murtagh was loyal? he had a huge opportunity to groom murtagh into the perfect weapon that was completely loyal to him. for a villain that is hyped up to be this conniving, scheming, extremely intelligent maniac of war it makes no fucking sense that these events wouldn’t have happened.
especially considering that prior to murtaghs capture, he literally had arya already in custody who we know by the end of the series is in fact a rider, and that had she been in uru’baen she’d have been the one to challenge eragon in murtaghs place.
which brings me to my biggest issue with the series. arya and murtaghs roles should have been switched. it would have been compelling, poetic even, for eragon to have these dreams about a beautiful and mysterious elven woman asking for aid, and being teased with this idea of a person that is connected to eragon somehow. all for it to be revealed that she is being controlled by galbatorix and along with her dragon, is being forced to attack the person that could liberate alagaesia. not only this- but she’d be forced to murder her own people as well. this is much more compelling than murtagh, who had essentially zero emotional stake in attacking the varden considering they hated him, and he knew that so explicitly that he actively tried to avoid escorting eragon there.
we’d have had an antagonist that we want to help, and is a huge challenge to the series. she has intimate details of elesmera, she is skilled in combat, her first language is literally the ancient language which all of the worlds known magic is directly tied to... and it would have been excruciating for the characters! which fits what paolini describes galbatorix to be: a sadistic man that wants complete control, has no value for life, and enjoys emotionally destroying the people that challenge him.
we see this in the fourth book in the courtroom scene where galbatorix forces eragon and murtagh to fight each other. problem is? that scene had little importance. for those who were invested in murtagh as a character and wanted to see him succeed it was engaging! except by that point it wasn’t even about murtagh, it was about eragon. this scene had no purpose other than to do a pvp that christopher could use to prove that eragon was canonically the better swordsman and strategist. except, that is bullshit because murtagh grew up learning how to fight with his main weapon being a sword, and his father figure that is explicitly said was extremely important to him was a renowned master swordsman. and somehow... we are expected to believe that because of a line that only is said in the last book (thanks arya) eragon is able to defeat murtagh in what is narratively the most interesting final battle since durza’s death????? it was a glorified pissing contest so that readers would know for sure that eragon was...cool, i guess??? better and smarter I Guess???
this battle could have been important if we had arya as the murtagh figure. we’d have two people who wanted to help the other, who each had so much to lose, being forced to fight for the kings entertainment. it would have been the perfect moment felt by characters and the reader how helpless, broken, and agonizing it would be to die like that. how cathartic it would have been for arya to risk everything by removing the kings wards and for eragon to cast the spell that forced galbatorix to feel every emotion he had ever made people feel, and that the reality of his actions destroyed whatever false belief he had that he was doing the right thing, and end the misery he put into the world himself.
the thing is, all of this could have happened!!! it could have been groundbreaking and at Least a cult classic if not on the same level as lord of the rings or star wars but he wanted the men he wrote to be so so cool so fucking bad that he didn’t even realize that the women he wrote were actually really fucking good? and so the series fell flat and it was cool to read as a kid but ultimately not that great for lasting impressions. what was the theme?? what was the message??? this was my favorite series as a kid, and i couldn’t tell you.
the inheritance cycle was a parody of itself, the skeleton of what it could have been. everything could have fallen perfectly into place and it would have been epic and dramatic and meaningful and we’d see the struggle and Believe it and be invested !!!! and you’d understand why characters did things and how they thought but instead we just .... got a hollow adventure series about dragons and magic. it was such a perfect thing to scratch the itch i had that wanted a fantasy version of iconic stuff like star wars and greek myths and other epics that have the MC start with nothing but. it was executed so poorly that it couldn’t have even been accidental.
christopher paolini sabotaged his own work just so that the men could be canonically cool, and that is such a fucking pity.
note: these are Not the only issues i have with inheritance cycle, and i know that there are other women in the series that were robbed of their potential ( notably nasuada and selena) BUT it is almost 3am, my phone is at 8%, and i’d rather give those characters their own analysis when i have more time to articulate it and run it by people.
