Secrets of the Dragon Riders: Your Favorite Authors on Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle: Completely Unauthorized

by James A. Owen

  So between these two extremes—the pretty and the perilous—are the elves of Tolkien and Paolini. Tolkien fashioned his elves not only from Anglo Saxon, Norse, and Teutonic sources, but also from the Irish elves or sidhe (pronounced “shee” and the root of banshee, a she-bitch screamer whose cries brought death to the hearer), stately creatures of faery who lived under mounds or faery hills, “the most handsome and delightful company, the fairest of form, the most distinguished in their equipment and apparel, and their skill in music and playing, the most gifted in mind and temperament that ever came to Ireland” (notes George Constable in The Enchanted World).12 Compare Tolkien’s elves: “They were tall, fair of skin and grey eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Findrod; and their voices had more melodies than any mortal voice that now is heard,” and Paolini’s: tall and graceful as dancers, “more fair and noble than any human Eragon had seen, albeit in a rarefied, exotic manner” (Eldest). There is no doubt that both Bilbo Baggins and his author are huge fans of elves, the most “superlatively gifted race to ever walk Middle-earth” (according to Master of Middle-Earth author Paul Kocher). And there is little doubt that Christopher Paolini based his own pointy-eared folk in large part on Tolkien’s.

  First there’s that smell of pine trees that Bilbo associates with elves, creatures “he loved though he seldom met them; but he was a little frightened of them too” (The Hobbit). Similarly, when Eragon rescues Arya from the Gil’ead dungeon and again when she later confronts him about his sworn allegiance to Nasuada, “a bit of fear” chills him, and the young Rider notices that the elf smells “like crushed pine needles” (Eldest).

  Secondly, Paolini’s elves share many qualities with “The People of the Stars”: loquaciousness, a dislike of dwarves, a love of trees (especially the Menoa Tree so like the mallorn-tree), a propensity for singing. Tolkienian elves bear a “keen original sympathy for other living beings. In order to speak with ents, elves taught them the ‘great gift’ of language” (says Kocher), just as Paolini’s taught the ancient language “to the other races, who used it for making and doing powerful things” (Eragon).

  Then there is the great journey of Paolini’s elves, “a proud race . . . strong in magic,” from Alalëa to Alagaësia until settling in Du Weldenvarden to create an aesthetically beautiful Eden, working at art, smithing handsome weapons, and representing the “ideal in [their] appearance” (Eragon; Eldest). These beings mirror Tolkien’s “People of the Great Journey” who sailed across the sea to Valinor and there “lived for ages, and grew fairer and wiser and more learned, and invented their magic and their cunning craft in the making of beautiful and marvelous things.” Lorien, for Frodo and company, is to Kocher “a land of peace and healing” just as Du Weldenvarden is the site of Eragon’s contemplative meditations, where his body is remade whole and arguably more elven.

  Further similarities abound in particular elf characterizations. The Lady Galadriel—like Arya, Oromis, and others—is able to read “the inmost thoughts of each of her guests”; she knows the mind of the Dark Lord but can bar his intrusions into her own. How closely she resembles Arya! As well, Legolas, like Oromis (who hopes Eragon will learn to emulate him), “can always see farther than anybody else, and can hear the very stones.” And Legolas and his friends, like Arya and her kin, “enjoy an endurance that never tires . . . a lightness of body” with “senses . . . keener, bodies more perfectly composed, than ours, as befits immortals.” We’ll revisit Arya’s body momentarily—if only to irk Eragon! Finally, we learn from Elrond’s refusal to take the Ring into his possession that Tolkien’s elves are susceptible to darker powers, to the possibility of evil. In Eragon we meet Vanir, whose competitiveness and disdain for Eragon, if not malicious, borders on nasty.13 Who knows what the future novels may reveal about the blacker hearts of various elfish traitors, as yet unknown or disguised?

  And now a few words about sex.

  Okay, J. R. R. Tolkien never said it out loud in either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. But certain scholars (not to mention bloggers and fans) have surmised that Tolkien’s elves did it.14

  However, I find it interesting, and probably hormonally apropos, that a fifteen- now twenty-one-year-old writer infuses his novels with more than a few hints of—with apologies to Marvin Gaye—“let’s get it on.” From his first glimpse in person of Arya, “Eragon’s blood burned. . . . Something awoke in him—something he had never felt before. It was like an obsession, except stronger, almost a fevered madness” (Eragon). The poor lad, from the start, is lost. When he tries to heal Arya’s terrible wounds, Eragon cannot help but notice “her lovely lady lumps” (as will.i.am might say). And it seems their wyrd is to be together: He has a ring, she has a tattoo with a yawë; they both have pointy ears; both read minds, make magic, like dragons.

  One might think our lad Christopher was watching the episode “Amok Time” of Star Trek wherein Spock endures the Pon Farr, or Vulcan mating ritual, that pricks his pointy ears to passion. Eragon’s similar seduction begins with a Siren-like “susurration” at his ear:Like a thread of smoke . . . the voice rose in strength until the forest sighed with a teasing, twisting melody that leaped and fell with wild abandon. . . . The air itself seemed to shimmer with the fabric of tempestuous music. The fey strains sent jolts of elation and fear down Eragon’s spine; they clouded his senses. . . . Seduced by the haunting notes, he jumped to his feet, ready to dash through the forest until he found the source of the voices, ready to dance among the trees and moss, anything so that he could join the elves’ revels (Eldest).

  Which hints at the age-old adage, “Blow in my ear and I’ll follow you anywhere.” But Arya is a killjoy. “Crossing her long legs” in Eldest, she explains that Dagshelgr is a fertility rite, a saturnalia practiced throughout Du Weldenvarden. In short, the birds, the bees, the animals, the elves are doin’ it! Maddeningly, she and her companions must do their duty and resist. The result for poor Eragon (and also Saphira and the others) is nothing short of sexual frustration. At dawn, everything in the forest is budding and blooming, except our young teenaged hero.

  For alas, Arya is holding out. Playing hard to get. All for the good of Alagaësia, mind you. Alien and beautiful, exotic and other, she is the older woman, an elf princess, beyond Eragon’s reach. He does what any lovesick suitor might: tells her she is beautiful, draws her portrait, brings her flowers, professes his love. All to no avail. She is inaccessible and closed to him. Arya is cruel: la belle dame sans merci. And Eragon wants her all the more, as is ever the way with errant knights bewitched by faery temptresses. We witness further flirtation and frustration in Brisingr : at one point the lovely Arya places a hand on Eragon’s knee; at another she shares with him an intimate story about Fäolin, former elven love; Rider and she-elf tend to each other’s battle wounds with an intimacy that borders on sexual healing (apologies once again, Marvin Gaye); and near the third novel’s conclusion, grief moves Arya to fling herself into Eragon’s arms. Her presence—so near and yet so far—is enough to drive our heart-sore hero to distraction, his breast tormented with “a torrent of hurt so deep and wild” (Brisingr) that one can only be reminded, “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”15

  One wonders what will become of this cool elf princess and the Rider who feels and looks like a “princeling” and wants a whole lotta love. Their names bear such resemblance to two others who became lovers: Arwen and Aragorn of Tolkien’s tale. Will Arya, like Arwen, somehow choose to become mortal? Or will Eragon fully transform to elf and become a prince worthy of la belle dame? Will their wyrds join as their yawës imply?

  The answers may prove as capricious and beautiful and dangerous as the elves.

  Gail Sidonie Sobat really loves elves, dragons, and all things faery—she almost wishes her ears were pointy! She is the author of the award-winning YA fantasy series Ingamald, A Winter’s Tale, and A Glass Darkly. She completed a master’s degree in English at the University of Alberta in children’s literature, s
pecializing in fantasy. Gail’s work has been published in academic and literary journals, anthologies, and has been broadcast on radio and performed on stage. Her newest work, Gravity Journal, is a realistic novel about a young girl who struggles with cutting and an eating disorder. Visit Gail’s Web site at www.gailsidoniesobat.com.

  How the Inheritance Cycle Differs From Fantasy Epics of the Past

  IAN IRVINE

  There are no new stories, Irvine notes in his essay-but the way that stories are told is also greatly affected by everything that came before. Oral storytelling gave way to the written word, and so on. With each change of methodto theater, and cinema, and even video gamesstorytellers have changed the way that they tell their tales. Irvine deftly demonstrates how the differences are not so much in the stories themselves, but in how the perceptions of the storytellers shape those old stories to present them in new ways.

  Late in the twentieth century the world definitively entered the third age of storytelling, and this is changing the way some new authors tell stories, and how young audiences view them. Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle reflects this transition.

  The first age, oral storytelling, began with tales told around the campfires of hunters and gatherers. It was only after printing became cheap enough that books were widely available and compulsory education ensured most people were literate that the world transitioned to the second age, written storytelling. Written storytelling must have existed since the invention of writing around 5,000 years ago, but only took over as the predominant form when mass-produced books became affordable in the Industrial Revolution. And not everyone was happy about it. Even in Greek and Roman times people complained that writing tales down was ruining the craft of storytelling.

  I had the opposite problem. When I first read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey I didn’t enjoy them much, for the oral storytelling style felt awkward and unfamiliar to me—though I had devoured books from an early age, I had seldom heard tales told. However, I loved The Aeneid, which Virgil had written to be read. Now there is as much angst about the recent move toward digital and visual media that’s making the printed book redundant.16

  Alas, I’ve never fully entered the third age where, over the past half-century, the written word has been replaced by the visual media (movies, TV, games, and Internet) as the principal form of storytelling. We didn’t have a TV at home when I was growing up (and how bitterly I resented that), and I rarely saw movies, so I never developed the sophisticated appreciation of these media that the youth of today take for granted.

  So how has storytelling changed, and how has it stayed the same?

  Critics of the Inheritance Cycle make much of the fact that Eragon was written when Paolini was in his teens, and that it is derivative of the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight series, and other fantasy epics. There seems little doubt that Paolini has been heavily influenced by these sources, but what’s wrong with that? J. R. R. Tolkien, George Lucas, and McCaffrey, and every other modern fantasy writer, were also influenced by writers and tales they admired. Indeed, Paolini acknowledges his debt along with his aspirations: “In my writing, I strive for a lyrical beauty somewhere between Tolkien at his best and Seamus Heaney’s [winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature] translation of Beowulf.”

  A noble aim for any writer, and particularly for a teenager, though traditionally the apprentice has begun by imitating the other great works and only found his true style after mastering the craft.

  Philip Pullman acknowledges his sources at the end of his His Dark Materials series—“I have stolen ideas from every book I have ever read. My principle in researching for a novel is, ‘Read like a butterfly, write like a bee,’ and if this story contains any honey, it is entirely because of the quality of the nectar I found in the work of better writers.”

  Besides, there is nothing new in literature: Everything we read is a reworking of what has gone before, back to the very first written works of literature, if not the dawn of human storytelling. The basic plots were first discussed by Aristotle in his Poetics twenty-three centuries ago. He believed there were only two, tragedy and comedy (though he did introduce subdivisions).

  Much has been made about fantasy coming out of nowhere to become a mainstream genre in the past few decades. In fact, fantasy is surely the oldest literary genre of all, and until the eighteenth century, when the novel appeared, most narrative fiction had a fantasy element, including the oldest known stories.

  The Epic of Gilgamesh, first written down more than four thousand years ago though based on older oral sources, is one of the earliest works of literature and has influenced many later works, not least Homer’s Odyssey. The echoes of Gilgamesh are evident in many epic fantasies of today, including Eragon.

  Briefly, the God-King Gilgamesh is outfitted with specially forged weapons and armor and sets out for epic adventures in strange lands . . .

  I must travel a road I have never travelled,

  . . . where he has to fight fantastical beings such as the monstrous demon, Humbaba, the cave-dwelling guardian of the cedar forest, who has brought evil upon the land:And Humbaba, his roaring is the Great Flood,

  His mouth is fire

  His breath is death!

  It seems that Gilgamesh can never defeat such a powerful and supernatural foe but, after a gigantic struggle, the monster is brought down:Gilgamesh struck the neck of Humbaba

  Enkidu, his friend, struck Humbaba twice also.

  At the third blow Humbaba fell . . .

  For two leagues the cedars resounded.

  This plot, the oldest in all literature, may also be the most common. There are few civilizations, ages, or cultures which do not have versions of the hero slaying the monster, from The Odyssey’s Perseus versus Medusa and Theseus venturing into the Labyrinth to kill the Minotaur, to Beowulf, St. George and the Dragon, Jack and the Beanstalk, the Australian Aboriginal tale of the great devil-dingo, most of the James Bond films, and Jaws and Alien. It is the classic hero’s journey of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a book which profoundly influenced Lucas in the creation of Star Wars. As Campbell describes it:A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernational wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons upon his fellow man.

  Later, using another common theme from myth and fantastic literature, Gilgamesh crosses the Waters of Death into the Underworld in search of immortality (in a scene reminiscent of Harry and Dumbledore’s crossing of the black underground lake in search of a Horcrux in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), though Gilgamesh is doomed to failure because of his own human frailties and follies, and because death is the fate of all humans, which it is impossible to fight: The common man, the noble man,

  Once they have reached the end of life,

  All are gathered in as one.

  But not for a long time in some cases. In Eragon, when Angela reads the dragon bones in Teirm, the infinity symbol comes up, suggesting that Eragon will have an extraordinarily long life. We later learn that this comes from being bonded with a dragon, and the healing in Eldest that gives him elf-like qualities. But of course that doesn’t mean that he can’t be killed.

  The doomed hero motif also occurs over and over again in the history of myth and fantasy, from the story of King Oedipus, to Kullervo in the Finnish national epic the Kalevala, to Count Dracula and Michael Moorcock’s stories of the albino Elric of Melniboné.

  Moorcock, also a notable critic of the fantasy genre, distinguishes fantasy fiction from myth, legend, and folktale “by its definite authorship and because it does not genuinely purport to be a true account of historical or religious events,” which is fair enough, though considered from the viewpoint of pure storytelling there is little difference between one and the other. And certainly, many readers of the great imaginative modern works such as the Lord of the Rings consider fantasy
to be a mythology for the modern age. As it happens, one of Tolkien’s initial aims was to create a mythology for the English-speaking peoples.

  A more relevant distinction is the purported intent of the work, or those who created it. The primary intent of modern fantasy is storytelling, while myths, legends, and folktales have a number of additional purposes, including explaining the world or the universe, the maintenance of a culture, and the justification and support of a ruler or realm. Virgil’s Aeneid, which is based on Aeneas, a Trojan from The Iliad, and roughly follows the second half of The Odyssey, tells the story of the founding of Rome and legitimizes the realm as being descended from gods and heroes.