inheritence cycle [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

ChaosLord29

2012-06-28, 02:14 PM

The Inheritance Cycle is very, VERY generic fantasy story. It works if you haven't read fantasy before, but if you only get into it after reading several other series and worlds... well, it didn't work for me. The first one in the series was the first book where I could tell what all the important "reveals" were before they happened.

The internet reception of the series is rather negative, so don't be surprised if the thread is filled with negative posts. Don't worry about that, though. I had a similar experience with David Eddings's books. They were generic and not original at all. I didn't know that when I first got into fantasy, so the books were really fun and enjoyable. It was only much later that I was able to spot the weaknesses in them.

I certainly count myself in the category of 'negative'. I found the entire series not only highly derivative, but the characters to be completely uncompelling and the various factions and politics within Alagaesia to behave in only the most predictably cliche fashion. And then, to top it all off, in the fourth book he pulls everything out of the bag with a huge Deus Ex Machina that restores the dragons as a species and the dragon riders as a power, but also to defeat Galbatorix himself.

Basically, I'd consider it the Nickelback (another source of internet trash fest ironically) of fantasy fiction.

I will give him this though. One day, while trolling the Eragon forums, someone challenged me to write something better, and then I did. It's technically speaking a work of fan fiction within Alagaesia (a fact I admit with no small amount of chagrin) but I consider it one of my own creative writing attempts that I am most proud of. It basically consists of "how would things have gone if the Elves stopped acting like a bunch of pansies by the end of book 2 and taken matters into their own hands".

oblivion6

2012-06-28, 02:22 PM

i will admit that i didnt really care for the restoring of the dragons, but i got over it

the war wouldve been over long ago, if the elves actually stepped up and helped earlier

ChaosLord29

2012-06-28, 02:27 PM

i will admit that i didnt really care for the restoring of the dragons, but i got over it

the war wouldve been over long ago, if the elves actually stepped up and helped earlier

That right there is what I'm talking about. The books I enjoy reading the most are the ones that don't have any story elements I'm required to 'get over' in order for me to finish/enjoy them to their fullest.

And the elves not stepping up and finishing the war because they can and it's the right thing to do is the perfect example of elves fulfilling the ultimate elven cliche for the purposes of the plot.

I must admit that I'm at least a little bit embittered against this series because when I was 17 my mom brought me Eragon and told me it'd been written by someone my age, and that if I wanted to I could be like him. I read the first book, and thought to myself, "Yeah, I could be like this guy, and completely rip off my favorite author in order to get myself published."

An Enemy Spy

2012-06-28, 03:31 PM

ChaosLord29

2012-06-28, 04:24 PM

Eragon is the plot of A New Hope told with dragons. You have the princess sending away the Macguffin right before the Darth Vader character captures her(I consider Durza and Morzen to be a sort of split Darth Vader), the farm on Tatooine/Carvahall, the wise mentor who dies, the Jedi/Dragon Riders, the rescue from the Death Star/Castle, the rebel base being attacked by the seemingly unstoppable army, and the hero saving the day as an ally comes blasting in from above. There's actually a few more paralells but it's been too long since I read the book.
That said, I did enjoy Eragon quite a bit, and Eldest. I haven't read the other two but I hope the quality improves as Paolini matures as a writer.

I wish I could say that it does, but I read the third book and if the fourth was anything like it . . . well, it was tiresome reading all the way through it, predicable and trite. I feel as though Paolini's characters never really seem to mature in a meaningful way, and that might be a symptom of him not maturing as a writer.

Let's see who I do on the parallels:

The crippling injury that Eargon/Luke receives at the hand of Durza/Vader
Eragon/Luke departs to receive training from an ancient master who has kept himself hidden, Oromis/Yoda
Galbatorix/Anakin had the individual he loved murdered by a barbaric tribe of fearsome creatures, leading him to topple current regime of mystical warriors.

The best part is that anything you can't attribute to Paolini gleaning from Star Wars, you can find parallels to in lord of the rings.

Agents of the big bad tracking the lone hero who fear water and fire, ride flying mounts, and make a piercing cry striking preternatural terror in mortals? Nazgul/Ra'zac.
Elves are immortal, tree loving creatures of magic, who do not need sleep, don't eat meat, and traveled to this continent from a mysterious western continent. (I realize this is frequent among most fantasy series, but the similarities of their origin is what bothers me.)
Eragon leaves Alagaësia at the end of the last book, Inheritance, on an elven ship, with elves and one of his old mentors, just like Frodo, Gandalf, and the elves.
Eragon/Aragorn loves the beautiful elven princess Arya/Arwen, despite the taboo between elves and humans.

oblivion6

2012-06-28, 04:33 PM

i know there is alot of similarities, but that didnt bother me at all. same with david eddings

there is one difference between the aragorn and eragon falling in love with an elf. aragorn/arwen actually get married, while eragon/arya do not since they'll likely never see eachother again

Zaydos

2012-06-28, 04:43 PM

Was never sure reading the first book (only one I ever got my hands on) if he was drawing upon The Wheel of Time or The Lord of the Rings more. Then I realized that it seemed to be drawing on... a few dozen fantasy series. The beginning is very much like the start of the first Wheel of Time book which was itself derivative of LotR in feel and some parts of the scenario, the magic seemed drawn from the Earthsea series by LeGuin, the dragons from Pern. All in all, though, I enjoyed the first book, it seemed like something I would have written at the time except better done. At the same time it seemed like something that I would have written, which even then I knew wasn't a good thing, but a mashing together of elements taken from various fantasy settings and while potentially awesome in a way could not be truly great. The writing style seemed immature, and I was able to guess the author's age to within a year by it (I over-estimated I'll admit), and my final decision was I'd like to read more of it eventually and the writer had some talent if he managed to mature as an author and not continue with the same flaws.

That said, I think the Star Wars comparisons are a little unfair. Those things weren't original when Star Wars did them either just not as widespread and connected to a certain series in our minds. Especially with the first book he was drawing on common fantasy cliches and Star Wars drew upon them (the black knight, the princess with the macguffin, the farm life before the tale, the wise mentor who dies, the rescue from the castle, etc).

Prime32

2012-06-28, 04:53 PM

I haven't read the last book, but the third had some extremely awkward retcons as Paolini tried to tone down Eragon's powers and remove the Star Wars elements. (eg. "Every soldier is warded against magic... except the ones Eragon has fought before. Including the ones guarding a max-security prisoner and the combatants in a major battle.")

Man on Fire

2012-06-28, 05:49 PM

I read through second book and didn't really liked it. I ignored the cycle completely.

Through I do have something funny to quote about it. Creator of The Witcher book series once said this about Eragorn (warning, rough translation as I'm writing from memory):

Apparently the author was only seventeen when he wrote it. Amazing. Trurly unbeliveable. After reading through first ten pages or so, yours trurly would swear he was five.

ChaosLord29

2012-06-28, 06:04 PM

That said, I think the Star Wars comparisons are a little unfair. Those things weren't original when Star Wars did them either just not as widespread and connected to a certain series in our minds. Especially with the first book he was drawing on common fantasy cliches and Star Wars drew upon them (the black knight, the princess with the macguffin, the farm life before the tale, the wise mentor who dies, the rescue from the castle, etc).

The story structure you're referring to is the Campbellian Hero's Cycle (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Heroesjourney.svg), which Star wars admittedly draws heavily on, however I think there's more too it than Paolini simply drawing on the same literary framework.

An excerpt from my favorite critique of the Eragon/Star Wars comparisons, which I think sums things up nicely:

"The existence of so many common factors between the two works cannot therefore be attributed to the monomyth, or even to inspiration . . . I've seen adaptations of other works that bear less resemblance to the original than Eragon does to Star Wars . . . it's pretty difficult to unwittingly use so many unoriginal ideas all from the same source." (The Lion King and Hamlet for Example, or Clueless and Jane Austen's Emma)

Here's the whole critique, good food for thought:
Some similarities between the two storylines can be explained by the fact that George Lucas based his work on the Campbellian Hero's Cycle; something that Christopher Paolini is either directly aware of, or indirectly aware of through the effect of Campbell's work on modern film and literature. Some elements, (Obi-Wan Kenobi/Brom spring out at me) are clearly influenced by a Campbellian archetype, and may be independent of each other.

However, the Campbellian Cycle is a very loose framework, that exists with widely varying interpretations ranging from The Lion King to The Odyssey. There is nothing that states the protagonist must be a lonely farm boy, for example. The existence of so many common factors between the two works cannot therefore be attributed to the monomyth, or even to inspiration (the original Star Wars was itself heavily inspired by The Hidden Fortress, a 1958 Japanese film), but only to plagiarism. (Well, maybe plagiarism is a harsh word. If you feel this way, imagine that I wrote "lack of imagination" instead. Actually, I do think that Paolini may not have been consciously aware of the Star Wars connection, so an accusation of plagiarism is unfair.) I've seen adaptations of other works that bear less resemblance to the original than Eragon does to Star Wars.

It is, as many people say, impossible to come up with a truly original idea. Yes, the damsel-in-distress and good-versus-evil themes existed long before Star Wars, but Lucas combined pre-existing thematic notes with some of his own to create a unique narrative melody. Every day, over six billion stories are told, all a little different from what has gone before. Every single person on this earth could tell a truly unique tale. Besides, it may be impossible to come up with an original idea, but it's also pretty difficult to unwittingly use so many unoriginal ideas all from the same source.

Paolini also plagiarizes the Lord of the Rings for setting (although he isn't the first to do this, admittedly, but he does do it to quite an extraordinary degree, even for a fantasy writer) and character names. He also borrows many features from Dragonriders of Pern, Belgeriad, Dune, and A Wizard of Earthsea, and scenes and features from a plethora of other books.

Yes, he did begin writing the book when he was fifteen, which is impressive, but Paolini was nineteen when he finished, which makes him a young, perhaps very young, adult author, but by no means a child prodigy. Heck, I'm seventeen and I reckon I could write a better book, if I focused on it (which hopefully I will). My parents don't own a publishing house, however, so I might have a bit more trouble getting it into print.

ThePhantasm

2012-06-28, 06:38 PM

I hate the Inheritance Cycle with a burning passion. The main character is effectively a sociopath, the plot is a rip-off of LOTR and Star Wars, and the writing is filled with purple prose. But the folks at Anti-Shurtugal have sporked through the books and their problems enough chapter by chapter, so I'll just leave it at that.

Das Platyvark

2012-06-28, 09:40 PM

I have a misplaced affection for the series, mostly out of nostalgia. The books were my introduction to many of the fantasy tropes found therein, to the point that the book struck me as brilliantly original. (I was 9, all right?)
I find his writing to be entertaining—not good, mind you, but entertaining—once you hit the later ones—he write in such a florid, over-the-top way that it feels like it's done in technicolor. The ending of the fourth book I found to be somewhat ridiculous—look, these wizards are also nukes now, along with the fact that the romance he'd been building toward for 4 books died quickly when he realized he was too scared of, (and decidedly ignorant of the specifics thereof, I would assume) making that particular sub-plot come to fruition. This is not to day I want pornography in my fantasy, rather that if you build toward something for 2400 pages, you should perhaps think of bringing it to some kind of resolution rather than trying to tie in some kind of poorly forced tragedy.

EDIT: Just going to stick in an apology here, for myself and the others who responded to this thread. We don't want to ruin or hate on a work you enjoyed—hell, I enjoyed—for the sake of hurting someone (I hope). It's just that the internet is a place of opinions, and it's a lot easier to shoot down something like this in text than in conversation. Basically, it's nothing personal.

Lord Seth

2012-06-28, 10:27 PM

Paolini also plagiarizes the Lord of the Rings for setting (although he isn't the first to do this, admittedly, but he does do it to quite an extraordinary degree, even for a fantasy writer) and character names.I do not think that whoever wrote that understands what plagiarism is. This sentence is especially odd considering it comes soon after them admitting that plagiarism really isn't the right word.

ChaosLord29

2012-06-28, 10:59 PM

I do not think that whoever wrote that understands what plagiarism is. This sentence is especially odd considering it comes soon after them admitting that plagiarism really isn't the right word.

I think their admission that plagiarism isn't exactly what he's accusing Paolini of demonstrates they have an excellent grasp of what it entails. Plagiarism in this case is being used as a placeholder. The author admits its a strong word, but it's also the most accurate and expedient way to describe. Substitute in 'derivative' or 'unoriginal' if it makes you feel better.

I'd also like to point out that this does nothing to disparage their actual argument, that Eragon is nothing terribly original/exceptional/laudable.

An Enemy Spy

2012-06-28, 11:11 PM

Lord Seth

2012-06-28, 11:24 PM

I think their admission that plagiarism isn't exactly what he's accusing Paolini of demonstrates they have an excellent grasp of what it entails.No, it means they're throwing out an extreme word to get an emotional response, then quickly backtracking so people don't call them out on it (flat-out saying it's unfair), all the while still achieving the original emotional response. And then they spontaneously forget that fact and use it again, again to try to make it seem worse. I have little patience for this kind of "incorrectly using provocative terms to get an emotional response" in arguments.

Plagiarism in this case is being used as a placeholder. The author admits its a strong word, but it's also the most accurate and expedient way to describe.It is not the most accurate way to describe it. I can't even say it's the most expedient way when I can think of other more accurate words or phrases that are actually shorter.

ChaosLord29

2012-06-28, 11:35 PM

Plagiarism is taking somebody else's work and putting your name on it. It is immoral and illegal. Whatever your thoughts of Paolini's work are, let's not go tossing words like that around without any evidence of it. Being unoriginal is bad practice for a writer, but it's not actually a sin.

Agreed on all counts. But like I said before, and as the critique states, Paolini's writing goes a step further than unoriginal. Not only does his character conform perfectly to the Cambpellian cycle of heroism. The only places it diverges from the traditional story structure are the parts where it coincides with Lord of the Rings and Star Wars:

The princess is captured by the evil empire, but not before she tries to send away the (Last Dragon Egg/Death Star Plans) to the former hero of the old age now living in hiding as a hermit/wise man.
The hero is revealed to be a rube farm boy living with his uncle (who is subsequently killed by the evil empire) and accidentally recovers said plot device which was meant for (Brom/Obiwan).
Brom/Obiwan reveals to Eragon/Luke that the Empire was not always evil and once an order of mystic warriors with great power kept peace throughout the land. That is until a member of that order was driven mad by grief (his loved one having been slain by a barbaric tribe of savage creatures), and betrayed them.
The hero travels, learning from the wise old man the ways of magic/the Force so they can join the Rebellion/Varden. However, the protagonist is captured, leading him to discover that the beautiful princess is imprisoned in the same fortress.
Together with the roguish scoundrel (who is fiercely loyal, despite his proclaimed selfishness) they manage to escape with the princess, encountering a major agent of evil along the way, the head lieutenant of the evil emperor.
The wise old man sacrifices himself to save the others from the forces of the evil empire.
They escort her back to the Rebel hideout, along with the thing that could help the Rebellion win their struggle against the Empire.

See, these are all things that are common between Eragon and Star Wars, but not necessarily part of the monomyth which they are both based upon. And as the critique I posted said " . . . it may be impossible to come up with an original idea, but it's also pretty difficult to unwittingly use so many unoriginal ideas all from the same source."

Dienekes

2012-06-28, 11:56 PM

I've always had this reaction to seeing a hack become popular: Good on you man, you beat the system. Enjoy the money man, I know I would.

And that's all I really have to say about Paolini. Now as to the books, I read the first two and had no desire to keep reading. Hell I read the first one and had no desire to keep reading but it was so big that I thought I really should see what the folks I knew were talking about.

But if you like them, great. I like Eddings, he was the first writer of fantasy I ever enjoyed, and was the bugger that got me into reading in the first place. And I go back to his mismatched, cliche ridden works every so often because they're pretty much my oldest friends. Don't let anyone tell you you're wrong for liking them. But, if they have a suggest on a better work you might like, take it.

oblivion6

2012-06-29, 12:04 AM

paolini's writing may be cliche but i enjoy his writing

i am also a huge fan of eddings, read each of them atleast 3 times in the last couple years alone:smalltongue:

ChaosLord29

2012-06-29, 12:07 AM

See, I like Eddings, and hold him in higher regard than Paolini, because his works, while cliche and using the most fundamental of literary tropes are not nearly so . . . trite. He doesn't take himself nearly as seriously.

With Paolini, it's more than a cliche. Everything that could have made his book original, was borrowed from someone else.

endoperez

2012-06-29, 12:25 AM

Agreed on all counts. But like I said before, and as the critique states, Paolini's writing goes a step further than unoriginal. Not only does his character conform perfectly to the Cambpellian cycle of heroism. The only places it diverges from the traditional story structure are the parts where it coincides with Lord of the Rings and Star Wars:

That is not plagiarism, or illegal, or wrong, but it might be bad writing.

It also doesn't conform perfectly. Having not read the books, just this thread, I can say that the story ended differently than the cycle, LotR or Star Wars (re: romantic subplot ending in separation).

Also, I'm pretty sure there are lots of fantasy stories that coincide with the combination of the Cycle and two well-known, celebrated stories. Probably the majority, even.

If the hero spends the beginning alone, it can be considered to be the part of the monomyth from before he gets help. If he travels with his most influential companions from the beginning, it's like Star Wars. If he travels with a small group and joins with more influential allies later, it's LotR. If it's something else, ignore it as irrelevant and instead compare the first time he meets his allies, or their first fight, or how they have to leave the inn/bar/planet they were in due to a threat, or whatever.

oblivion6

2012-06-29, 12:30 AM

i agree, eddings didnt really take himself seriously at all. he was a pretty funny guy actually. especially in all his forwards and afterwords(particularly in the rivan codex)

TheSummoner

2012-06-29, 12:52 AM

That is not plagiarism, or illegal, or wrong, but it might be bad writing.

Yeah... It kinda is. Several major plot points are essentially the same, but in a Fantasy setting. Individually, any one of those things could be marked up to coincidence. Together though, it's plagiarism, intentional or otherwise. Legality I'm not going to touch, but it is plagiarism and it is morally wrong (in addition to being bad writing).

Regarding David Eddings... Not a huge fan. What I read by him wasn't bad, though it did seem a bit... Generic... Cliched... Not what I'd call bad, but really nothing special.

ChaosLord29

2012-06-29, 01:08 AM

Yeah... It kinda is. Several major plot points are essentially the same, but in a Fantasy setting. Individually, any one of those things could be marked up to coincidence. Together though, it's plagiarism, intentional or otherwise. Legality I'm not going to touch, but it is plagiarism and it is morally wrong (in addition to being bad writing).

I'll speak to the legality element. Unknowing plagiarism is still plagiarism on the same grounds that ignorance of the law is not an excuse from being part of the law. It's not considered malicious though, so they don't punish you unduly, just remand whatever unknowingly illgotten profits you may have made.

Basically, I just don't give Paolini any credit as an author. His writing (through no fault of his own) is almost wholly unoriginaly. And as many people have pointed out, largely uncompelling (which is his own fault). The only reason he ever got published was because his parents own a publishing house and the only reason he ever got famous was because everything he written was already made famous by other works. He represents to me, everything that an author can do wrong, intentionally or not.

It also doesn't conform perfectly. Having not read the books, just this thread, I can say that the story ended differently than the cycle, LotR or Star Wars (re: romantic subplot ending in separation).

I'm not saying that it conforms perfectly, just that where it doesn't conform to the cycle it conforms to another major work of fiction. It could very well be coincidence, but even if it is, that doesn't say anything good about his writing abilities.

endoperez

2012-06-29, 11:16 AM

Yeah... It kinda is. Several major plot points are essentially the same, but in a Fantasy setting. Individually, any one of those things could be marked up to coincidence. Together though, it's plagiarism, intentional or otherwise. Legality I'm not going to touch, but it is plagiarism and it is morally wrong (in addition to being bad writing).

Regarding David Eddings... Not a huge fan. What I read by him wasn't bad, though it did seem a bit... Generic... Cliched... Not what I'd call bad, but really nothing special.

I don't think if fits within the definition of plagiarism. Instead, it could be a derivative work, or an illegal adaptation. It's not original, any way.
If there were any legal problems, he would have been sued. He wasn't, so I assume everything was legal.
Morally, the problem is presenting unoriginal ideas as your own. I've become so used to generic fantasy borrowing generic story elements from various sources, so I don't feel any emotional wrongness in it. Rationally, I can see why people think it's an issue, but I have a hard time caring. I mean, I don't care about his use of dragon-riders (Pern) and elves (Tolkien) any more than I care about them borrowing from earlier sources.

Yes, Eddings is nothing special in hindsight. As my introduction to generic fantasy adventure, though, he was something special.

TheSummoner

2012-06-29, 11:45 AM

I don't think if fits within the definition of plagiarism. Instead, it could be a derivative work, or an illegal adaptation. It's not original, any way.
If there were any legal problems, he would have been sued. He wasn't, so I assume everything was legal.
Morally, the problem is presenting unoriginal ideas as your own. I've become so used to generic fantasy borrowing generic story elements from various sources, so I don't feel any emotional wrongness in it. Rationally, I can see why people think it's an issue, but I have a hard time caring. I mean, I don't care about his use of dragon-riders (Pern) and elves (Tolkien) any more than I care about them borrowing from earlier sources.

Yes, Eddings is nothing special in hindsight. As my introduction to generic fantasy adventure, though, he was something special.

Oh, just because you get away with something doesn't mean it's legal. There are plenty of reasons why he might not be sued... Perhaps it wasn't considered worth the time and effort. Perhaps no one cared enough to do it.

See, there's a distinction you should make between using generic fantasy elements and copying several plot points wholesale from a single source...

Elves... Tolkien may have created the modern interpretation (or something fairly close that the modern interpretation evolved from. I wouldn't call his elves and modern generic elves the same, though they are similar), but they've become such a standard element in fantasy novels that I wouldn't fault anyone for using them.

Likewise with Dragons or Dragon Riders. I haven't read any of the Pern books, so I can't comment on how similar the two series handle them, but the idea of a person riding on a dragon in and of itself is fine (though you could make a case for plaigiarism if the two were handled in a more or less identical way).

ChaosLord29 pointed out several plot points that are more or less identical. There are plenty there, so I really don't think it can be called a coincidence. It's fine to have a few common but generic elements (elves. dragons. swords and sorcery. gods and heroes.) and it's probably coincidental if one or two plot points are similar (going back to Eddings for a moment, his protagonist started as a farm boy too, but no one's claiming he copied Star Wars), but with Paolini, there are so many parallels that calling it coincidence would be laughable.

Dusk Eclipse

2012-06-29, 12:01 PM

The inheritance cycle was one of my first contact with fantasy literature back in 2006, so far that it carved a special place in my heart. I read the latter books mostly to know how the story ended, though I still haven't read the last book (I finally found a bookstore where they sold ASoFI in English so Inheritance is on the backburner until I finish A Dance with Dragons).

Now the cycle is one of my biggest guilty pleasures...

Lord Seth

2012-06-29, 12:11 PM

Together though, it's plagiarism, intentional or otherwise.No, it is not.

Plagiarism is taking someone else's work and passing it off as your own. This has not been done. He didn't take the text of Lord of the Rings and say he wrote it. He wrote his own story. It may have been derivative and generic (and probably lazy), but that is not plagiarism.

Legality I'm not going to touch, but it is plagiarism and it is morally wrong (in addition to being bad writing).I'm dubious as to whether I would call it morally wrong, maybe bad writing or laziness, but I do not see how you can classify it as plagiarism unless you stretch the term so ridiculously far that it loses meaning.

It's fair to criticize it as bad writing or just make fun of it for it, but it's not plagiarism.

ChaosLord29

2012-06-29, 12:19 PM

Thanks for the support Summoner, I can see at least two of us are on the same page here. I mean, I would never disparage an author for including elves or dwarves, or some kind of orc derivative just because Tolkien did. Similarly, I don't criticize other science-fiction series for including proud warrior race aliens, or having the hero be a great starfighter pilot.

In fact, one of my favorite worlds of fantasy has more in common with Tolkien than Paolini; The Warhammer Fantasy Universe. Their elves are tall and slender, live forever and come from a mystical island to the west. Their dwarves hate the elves for past grievances, and there's even a race of green skinned monsters called 'orks'. With a 'K'. That's the only distinction they chose to make from the original pigmen. The reason I don't criticize it nearly as much as I do Paolini? Because while the world is an archetype of high fantasy, the stories they tell within it are original and compelling. They don't feel compelled to follow the monomyth cycle with all of their heroes, and their villains are not always the evil emperor.

I don't fault Paolini for using elves, I fault him for not doing anything creative with them. I don't fault Paolini for Eragon being a dragonrider, I fault him for giving him making the boy an orphan raised by his uncle and then mentored by a wise old mystic after the evil empire kills his family.

I also wouldn't fault him on Dragonriders of Pern. I mean, for one thing, that's a work of science fiction. The Dragonriders of that series are not mystic warriors keeping peace throughout the land, they only have one job, to defend the various settlements from the deadly alien fungus that once every decade or so falls from the sky and if left unchecked devours everything in it's path. Their dragons breathe fire, but they need to eat phosphorous laden rocks in order to do it. They can't use magic any more than you or I. They have a sort of telepathy with their dragons, but the dragons are more of an alien intelligence than Saphira.

No, it is not.

Plagiarism is taking someone else's work and passing it off as your own. This has not been done. He didn't take the text of Lord of the Rings and say he wrote it. He wrote his own story. It may have been derivative and generic (and probably lazy), but that is not plagiarism.

I'm dubious as to whether I would call it morally wrong, maybe bad writing or laziness, but I do not see how you can classify it as plagiarism unless you stretch the term so ridiculously far that it loses meaning.

It's fair to criticize it as bad writing or just make fun of it for it, but it's not plagiarism.

Look I'm not exactly interested in getting into a fine debate about what counts as plagiarism and what doesn't. However, I am well prepared and versed in getting into the moral implications of what Paolini did in writing his books, and being at best lazy about it, at worst, knowingly derivative and unoriginal.

Paolini's writing represents just how easy it is to get published and famous and make money off people without actually writing anything worthwhile, substantive or original and thus, represents to me everything that is wrong with the publishing industry. His books are the literary and mental equivalent to cheap chewing gum, but substantially more expensive. If Paolini can get published and make best seller lists and be hailed as a 'child prodigy' writing the way he did, then it is a sad state indeed, and I'd readily compare him to the likes of Stephanie Meyers or the authors of the Left Behind series. They took what others had done, gave it a slightly different spin (nothing I would call original) and then packaged it in the format most palatable to the masses for easy consumption.

If these were movies we were talking about, I'd compare them to Nightmare on Elmstreet 5, or Karate Kid 4, (The Next Karate Kid) or Jurassic Park 3.

TheSummoner

2012-06-29, 12:44 PM

No, it is not.

Plagiarism is taking someone else's work and passing it off as your own. This has not been done. He didn't take the text of Lord of the Rings and say he wrote it. He wrote his own story. It may have been derivative and generic (and probably lazy), but that is not plagiarism.

I'm dubious as to whether I would call it morally wrong, maybe bad writing or laziness, but I do not see how you can classify it as plagiarism unless you stretch the term so ridiculously far that it loses meaning.

It's fair to criticize it as bad writing or just make fun of it for it, but it's not plagiarism.

Plagiarism does not have to be the work as a whole. He has taken several different ideas and plot points--Any one/a few of which would have been innocent enough on their own--from a common source and passed them off as his own, original work.

Lets say I wanted to write a Fantasy webcomic... Let's say that in this Fantasy webcomic I'm writing, the following elements come up...

The heroes are a group of 6.
Their main antagonist is an evil magic user.
The main antagonist has a second in command whose scheming against him.
The heroes defeat their main antagonist in an early encounter but not permantly (though they believe they did)
The heroes are captured by a mysterious stranger and taken to a city far away.
In this city, the heroes learn more about the antagonist's goal.
The mysterious stranger, while having common goals, is constantly getting in the way of the heroes due to a lack of trust.
The antagonist attacks and destroys the city, though fails to accomplish his primary goal.

At what point does this become plagiarism? It's hard to say, but the further down the list you go, the harder it is to claim that it isn't. Take a few elements from that list on their own and you can make a case that it's pure coincidence... The others wouldn't be there so the story would still be different enough. Take a lot of them and it's a rather hard case to make.

Regarding the bit you edited out about "intentional or otherwise" when I said that, I meant subconsciously. He may not have INTENDED to write something that parallels Star Wars so closely, but that does not change the fact that he did and it does not make it any less wrong.

ChaosLord29

2012-06-29, 12:51 PM

Regarding the bit you edited out about "intentional or otherwise" when I said that, I meant subconsciously. He may not have INTENDED to write something that parallels Star Wars so closely, but that does not change the fact that he did and it does not make it any less wrong.

I would like to reiterate, this is a very simple principle in moral reasoning and legal procedure. "Ignorance of the crime is not an excuse."

You can't say that just because you didn't know what you were doing, or didn't know that it was wrong, that what you did was right. It may mean you weren't doing anything malicious (which lessens any potential retributive actions required), but doesn't make you any less culpable.

Lord Seth

2012-06-29, 01:10 PM

Paolini's writing represents just how easy it is to get published and famous and make money off people without actually writing anything worthwhile, substantive or original and thus, represents to me everything that is wrong with the publishing industry.Oh no! He wrote something people enjoyed! How horrible!

I don't get this mentality. I didn't like Eragon, but I don't complain and whine that other people dared to enjoy it. Or that, horror of horrors, publishing companies recognized this fact and printed something people wanted to read.

His books are the literary and mental equivalent to cheap chewing gum, but substantially more expensive. If Paolini can get published and make best seller lists and be hailed as a 'child prodigy' writing the way he did, then it is a sad state indeed,Again, oh no, people dare to enjoy the series. You may have a point with the child prodigy bit, but otherwise this honestly seems to be bashing people for daring to enjoy something you don't like.

and I'd readily compare him to the likes of Stephanie Meyers or the authors of the Left Behind series. They took what others had done, gave it a slightly different spin (nothing I would call original) and then packaged it in the format most palatable to the masses for easy consumption.I'm not familiar enough with the apocalyptic fiction genre to say how original or unoriginal Left Behind is, but Twilight? Really? If anything people are always complaining that Twilight is inserting all kinds of new things into its vampires/werewolves.

I've seen Twilight criticized for a lot of things, but I don't think I've ever seen it criticized for being unoriginal before.
It's hard to say, but the further down the list you go, the harder it is to claim that it isn't. Take a few elements from that list on their own and you can make a case that it's pure coincidence... The others wouldn't be there so the story would still be different enough. Take a lot of them and it's a rather hard case to make.Doesn't matter if it's coincidence or not. It's not plagiarism, unless you want to classify plagiarism so broadly that it loses meaning.

Again, you're just throwing out an emotionally-loaded word to try to get an emotional appeal despite the fact it's not plagiarism by what seems any reasonable definition.

If you want to criticize him for not being creative, fine, but don't throw out terms like plagiarism incorrectly.

Regarding the bit you edited out about "intentional or otherwise" when I said that, I meant subconsciously. He may not have INTENDED to write something that parallels Star Wars so closely, but that does not change the fact that he did and it does not make it any less wrong.What.

Intent matters considerably in how "wrong" something is. There's an enormous difference between accidentally taking something out of a store without paying for it and intentionally doing so. One is a crime, one isn't. There is an enormous difference between intentionally killing someone and unintentionally doing so. One is a felony, the other...well, depends on the circumstances, but it's a lesser crime to be sure. There is an enormous difference between saying something untrue while under oath intentionally and saying something untrue while under oath without knowing it's false. One is a felony, the other isn't.

This "intent doesn't matter" claim seems baffling.

TheSummoner

2012-06-29, 01:42 PM

Again, you're just throwing out an emotionally-loaded word to try to get an emotional appeal despite the fact it's not plagiarism by what seems any reasonable definition.

If you want to criticize him for not being creative, fine, but don't throw out terms like plagiarism incorrectly.

And you entirely missed the point I was making.

It COULD be a coincidence if a few, minor elements are similar. IF it is a coincidence, then it ISN'T plagiarism. However, the more in common there is, the LESS LIKELY it is to be a coincidence and the more likely it is that it is plagiarism.

Two stories both feature dragons. Coincidence? Probably.

Two stories both feature a long list of parallel plot points. Coincidence? Unlikely.

What.

Intent matters considerably in how "wrong" something is. There's an enormous difference between accidentally taking something out of a store without paying for it and intentionally doing so. One is a crime, one isn't. There is an enormous difference between intentionally killing someone and unintentionally doing so. One is a felony, the other...well, depends on the circumstances, but it's a lesser crime to be sure. There is an enormous difference between saying something untrue while under oath intentionally and saying something untrue while under oath without knowing it's false. One is a felony, the other isn't.

This "intent doesn't matter" claim seems baffling.

And yet the store owner has still lost the value of the item and the person is still dead.

If Paolini had never seen or hears about Star Wars in his entire life and still, somehow managed to write so many parallels, then yes, it would be perfectly innocent. Improbable to the point that if he made a statement saying he never did, I wouldn't believe it... but if it WAS true, then it would be innocent (and the coincidence of the century).

ChaosLord29

2012-06-29, 02:02 PM

Oh no! He wrote something people enjoyed! How horrible!

I don't get this mentality. I didn't like Eragon, but I don't complain and whine that other people dared to enjoy it. Or that, horror of horrors, publishing companies recognized this fact and printed something people wanted to read.

Again, oh no, people dare to enjoy the series. You may have a point with the child prodigy bit, but otherwise this honestly seems to be bashing people for daring to enjoy something you don't like.

My problem is not that people are enjoying themselves, it's that publishers and authors are willing to play it safe, be lazy, and unoriginal in order to exploit people so that they can what? Be famous? Make a quick buck? Good writing and good literature should challenge you to think, to be creative, and to consider what you ordinarily wouldn't. Reading something simply for the sake of shallow enjoyment and mindless entertainment isn't wrong for the same reason that masturbation isn't wrong. What's wrong is the publishing companies (and authors who are complicit with them) who encourage this sort of masturbatory reading; The publishers profit, the authors profit, and the readers don't really get anything out of it.

I'm not familiar enough with the apocalyptic fiction genre to say how original or unoriginal Left Behind is, but Twilight? Really? If anything people are always complaining that Twilight is inserting all kinds of new things into its vampires/werewolves.

I've seen Twilight criticized for a lot of things, but I don't think I've ever seen it criticized for being unoriginal before.Doesn't matter if it's coincidence or not. It's not plagiarism, unless you want to classify plagiarism so broadly that it loses meaning.

Once again, your focusing on nitpicking details and missing the overall point. Yes, Stephanie Meyers vampires were original in that they didn't share the traditional characteristics of vampires in other works of fiction. Stephanie Meyer's work however, was completely unoriginal because she failed to do anything with her vampires that any other bad romance novelist hasn't done with cowboys, outlaws, assassins, warriors, and more traditional vampires.

The same goes for my criticism of the Left Behind series. They took the Biblical concept of the Rapture, and re-imagined it taking place in the modern age. But the characters they presented and plots they then pursued with that original concept were so trite and cliche as to be banal.

Again, you're just throwing out an emotionally-loaded word to try to get an emotional appeal despite the fact it's not plagiarism by what seems any reasonable definition.

If you want to criticize him for not being creative, fine, but don't throw out terms like plagiarism incorrectly.

I will cease using the word plagiarism if it offends you. I agree that emotional outbursts and appeals only dilute the argumentative process. Most academic institutions conflate (perhaps not wrongly) plagiarism (the deliberate imitation of someone else's work without acknowledgement) with misuses of sources, which can be unintentional or just sloppy citation and misrepresentation of sources.

Intent matters considerably in how "wrong" something is. There's an enormous difference between accidentally taking something out of a store without paying for it and intentionally doing so. One is a crime, one isn't. There is an enormous difference between intentionally killing someone and unintentionally doing so. One is a felony, the other...well, depends on the circumstances, but it's a lesser crime to be sure. There is an enormous difference between saying something untrue while under oath intentionally and saying something untrue while under oath without knowing it's false. One is a felony, the other isn't.

This "intent doesn't matter" claim seems baffling.

I agree completely. Intent matters in terms of the reprehensibility of the action being committed. It doesn't make a lick of difference as to whether the act was originally wrong. The difference between intentional plagiarism and accidentally accomplishing what would otherwise be considered plagiarism is the same as the difference between manslaughter and murder in the first. In either case there was still a wrongful action committed and the perpetrator is equally to blame, the only difference is how much punishment we feel the action warrants.

I'm curious though, what do you say to the argument that Paolini's use of similar plot devices and elements is too coincidental not to have been intentional, even at a subconscious level? Obviously it's impossible to prove, since only Paolini can know what hew as thinking at the time, but do you think there's anything to be said for the fact that his use of ideas transcends unoriginality and coincidence?

Man on Fire

2012-06-29, 02:02 PM

In all of it you reminded me of scene I disliked the most in second book.

Tides of battle gets turned by sudden apperance of one, one village of unarmed peasants, who never have a sword in their hands and who have been traveling for weeks, if no months and should be tired as hell. This makes no friggin sense whatsoever!

Also, I haven't read Eddings, but from what I gathered, the difference between him and Paolini is that he is aware of how cliched his writing is, so he doesn't take himself too seriously and embraces all those fantasy cliches, to have fun with them. In Paolini's case you get the impression he was unaware how tired and overused his tropes are and tought he will change the genre with it. I certainly did.

ChaosLord29

2012-06-29, 02:07 PM

Lord Seth

2012-06-29, 02:22 PM

And you entirely missed the point I was making.

It COULD be a coincidence if a few, minor elements are similar. IF it is a coincidence, then it ISN'T plagiarism. However, the more in common there is, the LESS LIKELY it is to be a coincidence and the more likely it is that it is plagiarism.You know that it can be both not a coincidence and not plagiarism at the same time, right?

Plagiarism also tends to be more of a nonfiction work thing. When people sue over fiction, it's rarely for plagiarism, it's for copyright or trademark violation, which are somewhat related but still separate.

And yet the store owner has still lost the value of the item and the person is still dead.Irrelevant. You made the claim that it was equally immoral. Unless you are saying these situations I posited are equally immoral? That if someone says something under oath that's false, it should be perjury even if they did not know it was false? That if someone kills someone unintentionally, they should be charged with first degree murder? Because that seems a tenuous position at best, an indefensible position at worst.

ChaosLord29

2012-06-29, 02:31 PM

You know that it can be both not a coincidence and not plagiarism at the same time, right?

Plagiarism also tends to be more of a nonfiction work thing. When people sue over fiction, it's rarely for plagiarism, it's for copyright or trademark violation, which are somewhat related but still separate.

Irrelevant. You made the claim that it was equally immoral. Unless you are saying these situations I posited are equally immoral? That if someone says something under oath that's false, it should be perjury even if they did not know it was false? That if someone kills someone unintentionally, they should be charged with first degree murder? Because that seems a tenuous position at best, an indefensible position at worst.

It's not irrelevant, morality is not a quantifiable value. You can't say that one murder is 12 morality units more awful than another murder, it's totally subjective. Our justice system assigns practical values to those incidences, but they are still evaluated on a case by case basis because individual circumstances matter. Because we're not dealing with a case like murder (where intent is a big deal) and dealing with intellectual property (where the end result is what is more important), it is a fair distinction, or more accurately, the lack thereof.

Besides, you're still operating on the assumption that Paolini was completely innocent in his 'borrowing' of thematic and plot devices. I think the evidence points to the contrary. That it would be such a bizarre coincidence that he so closely mirrored a single work of popular fiction, we should consider the far more likely possibility that it was in fact a deliberate (if unconscious) action on his part.

You're just quibbling over a narrow definition of plagiarism that requires intent.

TheSummoner

2012-06-29, 02:33 PM

You know that it can be both not a coincidence and not plagiarism at the same time, right?

You know that I said twice that it either was one or the other and never claimed that it was both, right?

Plagiarism also tends to be more of a nonfiction work thing. When people sue over fiction, it's rarely for plagiarism, it's for copyright or trademark violation, which are somewhat related but still separate.

Semantics. Either way, it was several plot points taken from Star Wars and passed off as his own. If I'm using the wrong term for it then I'm using the wrong term for it. It doesn't change the fact that a large number of plot points are more or less the same.

Irrelevant. You made the claim that it was equally immoral. Unless you are saying these situations I posited are equally immoral? That if someone says something under oath that's false, it should be perjury even if they did not know it was false? That if someone kills someone unintentionally, they should be charged with first degree murder? Because that seems a tenuous position at best, an indefensible position at worst.

Fine, I'll reword what I said.

Regarding the bit you edited out about "intentional or otherwise" when I said that, I meant subconsciously. He may not have INTENDED to write something that parallels Star Wars so closely, but that does not change the fact that he did and it does not mean it isn't wrong.

Happy now? The last five words have been changed. If you want to talk about relevance, perhaps we should discuss how relavent murder/manslaughter and theft are to a discussion about whether or not Paolini took several plot points from Star Wars and used them in a fantasy setting.

Rockphed

2012-06-29, 02:36 PM

I remember liking them when I first read them years ago, but I have no desire to reread them, and I can barely remember the details now. The guy isn't a bad writer, but he's far from a good author.

I liked Eragon the first time I read it. When Eldest came out, I soured to the series.

I think the thing about Eddings is that he knows his stories are very unoriginal and he plays with and pokes fun at that fact within the stories. Paolini, however, takes himself very seriously and thinks of himself as in the realm of what was the quote again? Ah, right. "Striv[ing] for a lyrical beauty somewhere between Tolkien at his best and Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf" (http://voices.yahoo.com/christopher-paolini-infamous-name-fantasy-literature-64767.html)

When trying to hit the area between Lord of the Rings and Beowulf, the proper form is not prose. The proper form is an epic poem. Preferably written with some sort of epic meter that makes it easy to set the whole thing to hurdy-gurdy music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4BUkOjxuZo).

Friv

2012-06-29, 09:28 PM

Plagiarism does not have to be the work as a whole. He has taken several different ideas and plot points--Any one/a few of which would have been innocent enough on their own--from a common source and passed them off as his own, original work.

Lets say I wanted to write a Fantasy webcomic... Let's say that in this Fantasy webcomic I'm writing, the following elements come up...

The heroes are a group of 6.
Their main antagonist is an evil magic user.
The main antagonist has a second in command whose scheming against him.
The heroes defeat their main antagonist in an early encounter but not permantly (though they believe they did)
The heroes are captured by a mysterious stranger and taken to a city far away.
In this city, the heroes learn more about the antagonist's goal.
The mysterious stranger, while having common goals, is constantly getting in the way of the heroes due to a lack of trust.
The antagonist attacks and destroys the city, though fails to accomplish his primary goal.

At what point does this become plagiarism?

I hope at no point, because if you're using that as your point of reference I've read a good five or ten books that pretty much cover that. Hell, I think you just described the first act of Final Fantasy 9.

SaintRidley

2012-06-29, 09:37 PM

Lets say I wanted to write a Fantasy webcomic... Let's say that in this Fantasy webcomic I'm writing, the following elements come up...

The heroes are a group of 6, led by a melee tactician.
Their main antagonist is an evil, undead magic user.
The main antagonist has a second in command who's scheming against him with a double bluff about the nature of their shared plan.
The heroes defeat their main antagonist in an early encounter but not permanently (though they believe they did)
The heroes are captured by a mysterious stranger acting as an enforcer of law and order for the greater good and taken to a city far away.
In this city, the heroes learn more about the antagonist's goal, which involves four other locations like the one at which they first defeated the antagonist, each location being guarded by a design cooked up by one of five heroes from a previous group of six, one of whom founded the order of which our mysterious stranger is a member.
The mysterious stranger, while having common goals, is constantly getting in the way of the heroes due to a lack of trust as well as an inability to comprehend the notion that she could be wrong.
The antagonist attacks and destroys the city, though fails to accomplish his primary goal, but this is the midpoint of the story so far and he has two more locations left. Also, his army is occupying the city.

As friv noted, yours was still a bit too vague to count.

I believe I may have helped you out by adding enough details to push it into the position of being outright theft.

You're welcome.

TheSummoner

2012-06-29, 09:58 PM

*shrug*

If my example list isn't enough, then it just means the point where it would become plagiarism requires a longer or more specific list.

Geostationary

2012-06-29, 10:56 PM

*shrug*

If my example list isn't enough, then it just means the point where it would become plagiarism requires a longer or more specific list.

That's the problem. At what point does it magically go from "similar story layout" to "outright theft"? You've been setting the bar at semi-arbitrary points to confirm your views- the list you gave is basically a series of relatively common fantasy tropes that could just as easily be put into another genre and still be "original" for a given value of "original". Even SaintRidley's altered list could easily be taken and made into an "original" story that wouldn't be plagiarizing anyone, unless you consider using a common set of tropes plagiarizing, in which case almost all stories are guilty.

TheSummoner

2012-06-29, 11:12 PM

I've set no such bar. I gave a list of elements from OotS and asked at what point it became outright theft. I never said where that point was. I DID, however say that it was diffucult to say where that point is but that the more elements in common, the more likely it was to be theft instead of coincidental similarity.

In Paolini's case, the common elements are plentiful enough and specific enough, that in my opinion atleast, it qualifies as outright theft.

Triscuitable

2012-06-30, 12:17 AM

I remember liking them when I first read them years ago, but I have no desire to reread them, and I can barely remember the details now. The guy isn't a bad writer, but he's far from a good author.

He was 15 when the first book was published. That's pretty impressive, but 15 year-old kids aren't very creative (if your last name is Paolini).

Anyways, that ending was a giant piece of crud. I hated it. I read the first book when I was in the 1st Grade. That was nine years ago. Now he's 26, and it's just stupid. I felt the whole book was fairly decent, but the ending just ruined it for me.

What, dragons are endangered? Who cares! Everyone gets a dragon! Dragons all around! (Not really, but this is what it felt like).

oblivion6

2012-06-30, 12:21 AM

He was 15 when the first book was published. That's pretty impressive, but 15 year-old kids aren't very creative (if your last name is Paolini).

Anyways, that ending was a giant piece of crud. I hated it. I read the first book when I was in the 1st Grade. That was nine years ago. Now he's 26, and it's just stupid. I felt the whole book was fairly decent, but the ending just ruined it for me.

What, dragons are endangered? Who cares! Everyone gets a dragon! Dragons all around! (Not really, but this is what it felt like).

exactly my point, i loved the series except for that ending

An Enemy Spy

2012-06-30, 12:31 AM

He was 15 when the first book was published. That's pretty impressive, but 15 year-old kids aren't very creative (if your last name is Paolini).

Anyways, that ending was a giant piece of crud. I hated it. I read the first book when I was in the 1st Grade. That was nine years ago. Now he's 26, and it's just stupid. I felt the whole book was fairly decent, but the ending just ruined it for me.

What, dragons are endangered? Who cares! Everyone gets a dragon! Dragons all around! (Not really, but this is what it felt like).

Wait. If he was fifteen nine years ago, wouldn't that make him 24?

SaintRidley

2012-06-30, 12:40 AM

He was 15 when the first book was published. That's pretty impressive, but 15 year-old kids aren't very creative (if your last name is Paolini).

Actually, he was 15 when he started it. 19 when he published it. Or rather, Paolini International LLC published it before it got picked up by someone who was not his parents.

TheSummoner

2012-06-30, 12:43 AM

And Triscuitable never said it was published 9 years ago. He said he read it 9 years ago. (Though with the way he went from that to Paolini being 26, it's an easy enough mistake to make)

Lord Seth

2012-06-30, 01:24 AM

My problem is not that people are enjoying themselves, it's that publishers and authors are willing to play it safe, be lazy, and unoriginal in order to exploit people so that they can what? Be famous? Make a quick buck?I don't think these apply to the books at hand. Based on the statements they've made in how they came about, Paolini wrote Eragon because he liked fantasy books and wanted to write one of his own, and Meyer wrote Twilight because she had a dream about a boy and girl in a meadow (where the boy was a vampire and was sparkling and they were falling in love and he was afraid of his attraction to her blood and...oh, just read Chapter 13 of Twilight, it's all there) and she wanted to write a book that had that in there.

I see little reason to doubt either of their accounts. I really, really doubt they were out to "exploit" people, they just wrote books for their own reasons, figured they might as well try to get them published, and they got lucky and caught on big time. There are probably a heck of a lot better ways to make a quick buck and/or get famous than writing a book (which takes a while) and going through the rigamarole of getting published (assuming you manage it) and hoping you're the one who manages to hit the bestseller lists.

The publishers profit, the authors profit, and the readers don't really get anything out of it.Other than, you know, enjoyment and entertainment.

Once again, your focusing on nitpicking details and missing the overall point. Yes, Stephanie Meyers vampires were original in that they didn't share the traditional characteristics of vampires in other works of fiction.They did share a lot of them, the sparkling was really the only new thing. Though to be fair, pretty much all vampires nowadays are a conglomeration of previous traits, the difference is which traits get picked. Still, she did do something new with the vampires. I think it was something stupid, but it was still new.

Stephanie Meyer's work however, was completely unoriginal because she failed to do anything with her vampires that any other bad romance novelist hasn't done with cowboys, outlaws, assassins, warriors, and more traditional vampires.Obviously she did something different in her series compared to the rest, because it's the one that got popular. What that something is I don't know and don't care enough to figure out, but there was obviously something unique about it that set it out from the rest.

It's not irrelevant, morality is not a quantifiable value.If you're going to make that claim, then you must logically also disagree with the claim originally made about things being equally immoral. If it is not quantifiable, you cannot claim things are equally immoral either, because how are you quantifying them?

You can't say that one murder is 12 morality units more awful than another murder, it's totally subjective.So again by the logic you present, you can't say that one murder is equally awful as another murder, or that anything is equally, greater, or less immoral than something else, because according to you, morality is not a quantifiable value. In other words, your defense is self-refuting.

You know that I said twice that it either was one or the other and never claimed that it was both, right?I didn't say it could be both, I say it could be neither. Though I suppose I could have worded it better.

Semantics.I think semantics are important here.

Happy now? The last five words have been changed. If you want to talk about relevance, perhaps we should discuss how relavent murder/manslaughter and theft are to a discussion about whether or not Paolini took several plot points from Star Wars and used them in a fantasy setting.I fail to see how they were irrelevant to your claim that doing something with intent and without intent are equally immoral. You were the one that made that claim, not me. Don't get angry at me for responding to it accordingly by providing examples of what a fallacious philosophy that is. I was being perfectly relevant.

endoperez

2012-06-30, 01:24 AM

My problem is not that people are enjoying themselves, it's that publishers and authors are willing to play it safe, be lazy, and unoriginal in order to exploit people so that they can what? Be famous? Make a quick buck? Good writing and good literature should challenge you to think, to be creative, and to consider what you ordinarily wouldn't. Reading something simply for the sake of shallow enjoyment and mindless entertainment isn't wrong for the same reason that masturbation isn't wrong. What's wrong is the publishing companies (and authors who are complicit with them) who encourage this sort of masturbatory reading; The publishers profit, the authors profit, and the readers don't really get anything out of it.

In short, you're saying that publishers should not publish books people want to read, but instead, books people should read.

You're wrong. Publishers are running a business, and one of their duties is feeding their families and paying their workers. They do this by publishing all kinds of things, from trash to treasure.

You don't have to like it. They might not like it! But it's not wrong.

I've set no such bar. I gave a list of elements from OotS and asked at what point it became outright theft. I never said where that point was. I DID, however say that it was diffucult to say where that point is but that the more elements in common, the more likely it was to be theft instead of coincidental similarity.

In Paolini's case, the common elements are plentiful enough and specific enough, that in my opinion atleast, it qualifies as outright theft.

Let's come at this from a different angle, then.

If it's the plot ripped off from Star Wars that's your biggest problem with the Inheritance Cycle, would you have anything against its world being hsed as a campaign setting? It would take place before the events of the Cycle, and that way, there'd be no connection to Star Wars. Does this make it all right?

If it does, it's the plot, and plot alone, that makes The Inheritance Cycle wrong.

If there exists another book, movie or whatever, with a plot that's just as clearly ripped off from another, then that should be wrong, too. And not just wrong, but wrong in such a way that someone should always point this wrongness out whenever people are discussing this work.

Say, Romeo and Juliet (which didn't start as a play, I understand). Or Cars (from Doc Holliday). Or Lion King (from Kimba the White Lion). Or Lion King (from Hamlet). I'd have loved to dig up some more appopriate references, but TvTropes seems to have more cartoon fans than fantasy fans.

ChaosLord29

2012-06-30, 02:20 AM

I had a conversation with my irl friends tonight on this discussion and I've decided that plagiarism is definitely too strong a term, given that implies a knowing, malicious misrepresentation that cannot be proven in the case of Paolini and Eragon.

I am content to call Eragon an adaptation of Star Wars, in a swords and sorcery setting, in the same vein of Ten Things I Hate about You or Bridget Jone's Diary are adaptations of Elizabethan and Victorian literature, in a modern setting. There's not enough evidence to call it plagiarism, but too many parallels to call it coincidence.

To address the specific arguments leveled against me however:

@endoperez

In short, you're saying that publishers should not publish books people want to read, but instead, books people should read.

You're wrong. Publishers are running a business, and one of their duties is feeding their families and paying their workers. They do this by publishing all kinds of things, from trash to treasure.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying and you can't say that I'm wrong. It's not a black and white issue like that. It would be wrong for publishers and authors to publish something derivative, unoriginal and otherwise devoid of meaningful content for the sake of making money. Likewise, it would also be wrong for them not to make money in order to feed their families. In a perfect world, you wouldn't have to choose between the two, but we don't live in a perfect world.

However, the reality that we do not live in a perfect world is not an excuse not to strive to create a better world, closer to a perfect world, even if the struggle is ultimately fruitless. If we never try, we won't know, and if no ever questions the status quo, then nothing will ever improve. Which leads me to my next point:

@endoperez

If there exists another book, movie or whatever, with a plot that's just as clearly ripped off from another, then that should be wrong, too. And not just wrong, but wrong in such a way that someone should always point this wrongness out whenever people are discussing this work.

Say, Romeo and Juliet (which didn't start as a play, I understand). Or Cars (from Doc Holliday). Or Lion King (from Kimba the White Lion). Or Lion King (from Hamlet). I'd have loved to dig up some more appopriate references, but TvTropes seems to have more cartoon fans than fantasy fans.

Now this, is a relevant point and argument, but I believe I can distinguish myself sufficiently and Paolini's work from these examples. Romeo and Juliet is a classic tale of Forbidden Love which is necessarily difficult to attribute as original to any particular author or story. The Lion King and Hamlet is more or less a tribute or an homage, retold in an alternate setting and for a different audience.

Lion King and Kimba the White Lion however, is where I think we would agree. I have in the past criticized Disney for unapologetically borrowing elements from this cartoon show, taking advantage of the fact that it wasn't well known or popular. Another example that came up with my friends this very evening was Led Zeppelin covering songs by less popular bands and passing them off as their own, to much greater success. This is I think the closest thing to what Paolini did with Star Wars, and I'm willing to admit that it's at least possible he did it unintentionally.

And to reiterate, my problem is not that Egaron follows the Monomyth cycle of the hero the same way that Star Wars does. My problem is that what Eragon does not have in common with the Campbellian cycle are the same elements that it has in common with Star Wars.

There's nothing in the monomyth that says your hero has to be a farm boy, or that his uncle has to be killed, or that the princess has to be captured, or that the "mentor figure" has to be the local old wise hermit who the princess was originally intending to contact. Or that their has to be an order of mystic warriors who kept order in the previous age.

These are all things that Eragon has in common with Star Wars, and cumulatively, only Star Wars. Any two or three of these elements found in a similar story could easily be coincidence, but all of them, together, in the same one, just seems . . . concerted.

@Lord Seth

Obviously she did something different in her series compared to the rest, because it's the one that got popular. What that something is I don't know and don't care enough to figure out, but there was obviously something unique about it that set it out from the rest.

Popularity is not an indicator of success, originality, or worth. Just because people agree about something does not inherently increase its worth or value, nor does it warrant praise or laud in the manner that Paolini and Meyers have received. The only thing that popular success demonstrates is that whatever it is that was successful had the good fortune to be exactly what people were looking for at the time at which it was produced.

So again by the logic you present, you can't say that one murder is equally awful as another murder, or that anything is equally, greater, or less immoral than something else, because according to you, morality is not a quantifiable value. In other words, your defense is self-refuting.

My point is that what Paolini did is wrong, whether it was intentional or not. Our mutual logic supports that fact. The point about murder is that whether it's intentional or not, it's still wrong. The reason intent matters more for murder is that a life is at stake (sometimes in both cases). In intellectual property cases, intent matters much less because the end result is the same, and the solution equally applicable, regardless of intent.

endoperez

2012-06-30, 06:03 AM

thubby

2012-06-30, 06:48 AM

i thought they got progressively worse as the series went on. the secret vault full of DEM? come on.

then again, maybe it's because in the 9 years between them all i read more good literature.

dehro

2012-06-30, 07:12 AM

I enjoyed reading the first one despite the many, many, plot points in common with star wars (I remember once reading a thread where someone had identified more than 20 of them..which is a bit much, plagiarism or not).
the idea there was that if a kid of 17 can have such success it had to be good.
I read the second book.. then got fed up with the too many derivative devices and the altogether average quality of writing. could I write something better? I don't know.. but I'm pretty sure I could write something pretty much of equal standard.. and that I wouldn't get the rave reactions he got.

sometimes around then I was dragged to watch the movie..wich I am told was created with Paolini taking directly part to the process.
it killed any remaining interest I might have had towards the further books..something that was compounded when the news came out that a fourth book would have to be written as well.
I never read the third book nor plan to read the fourth.

as for "yes, the story isn't copied because the love interest doesn't marry the hero"... well..I figure that by the time the author got around to writing the ending, he must have been trying all he could to stop people making parallels with star wars.

I don't resent his success in the slightest but would rather not contribute to it for the sake of knowing how it ends, since I've lost interest.

Xondoure

2012-06-30, 07:18 AM

My big problem with Eragon is not only is it Star Wars, it's Star Wars set in middle earth with good dragons and a language that seems to think it can compete with Quenya and Sindarin. I mean Eragon as a name itself is a problem. Especially when he's in love with an elvish woman named Arya. :smalltongue:

Lord Seth

2012-06-30, 10:26 AM

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying and you can't say that I'm wrong.Why not?
It's not a black and white issue like that. It would be wrong for publishers and authors to publish something derivative, unoriginal and otherwise devoid of meaningful content for the sake of making money.Like endoperez, I don't see anything particularly wrong with that scenario, partially because what you claimed is so subjective. Obviously the people who enjoy the books you consider "devoid of meaningful content" think they have meaningful content, or at least enjoyable content.

Now this, is a relevant point and argument, but I believe I can distinguish myself sufficiently and Paolini's work from these examples. Romeo and Juliet is a classic tale of Forbidden Love which is necessarily difficult to attribute as original to any particular author or story."The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet" is a pretty specific story.

Lion King and Kimba the White Lion however, is where I think we would agree. I have in the past criticized Disney for unapologetically borrowing elements from this cartoon show, taking advantage of the fact that it wasn't well known or popular.I'm a bit dubious as to how much they did take elements from it. I remember reading a site that seemed to do a good job rebutting claims of them taking ideas from it, though frustratingly I can't remember where the darn thing was. But I do remember it seemed fairly convincing. Of course, I know how weak "I read somewhere that this wasn't true but can't remember where" sounds, which is why I'm so frustrated I didn't bookmark it...

Popularity is not an indicator of success, originality, or worth.But it does show that something separated it from all the other similar stories, that something was being done in it that separated it from the rest of the pack.

My point is that what Paolini did is wrong, whether it was intentional or not.I don't see anything "wrong" about it. Unless by wrong you mean poor writing, which is a more reasonable point, but I don't see it as "wrong" morally.
The point about murder is that whether it's intentional or not, it's still wrong.This is a complete non sequitur, because by definition murder is always intentional. The definition of murder is that it's a premeditated (intentional) and illegal. If it's not both of those things, then it's not murder. Killing someone intentionally isn't murder if it's not illegal (e.g. self defense) and killing someone unintentionally in an illegal fashion isn't murder either.

Unless you are trying to say that killing someone is always wrong, which is something I would strongly disagree with. Though at this point I think we are getting off topic.

In intellectual property cases, intent matters much less because the end result is the same, and the solution equally applicable, regardless of intent.If we're going by end result in intellectual property cases, I don't think there's much reasonable ground to stand on in regards to Star Wars and Eragon. There's no real case for copyright infringement that I can see. I'll admit I'm no expert on copyright law, but from my knowledge it doesn't seem like there's much of a case here. You can't copyright ideas or tropes.

You know, I find it frustrating I've had to spend so much time defending a book I didn't even like...

The Glyphstone

2012-06-30, 10:40 AM

i thought they got progressively worse as the series went on. the secret vault full of DEM? come on.

then again, maybe it's because in the 9 years between them all i read more good literature.

That might actually be a subversion - does it still count as DEM if said DEM was rather explicitly forshadowed in the very first book?:smallconfused:

ChaosLord29

2012-06-30, 04:36 PM

That's nice, it's somewhat rare for people in the internet to change their opinions. Thanks for being reasonable. It seems we agree on most points in the Eragon argument now. At least my disagreement with your last post are only personal opinions on matters too small to argue about.

Regarding publishers, I'd have said that it's morally right to publish material that makes the world a better place, but not morally wrong to publish the literary equivalent of fast food and diet coke. I can see why you say the latter is wrong, though.

I appreciate your respect, and I firmly believe that the most important part of any discussion is the willingness to keep an open mind. After all, if you're not willing to admit that your opponent might be right, then there's not point in debating to begin with, since they have no reason to admit that you might be right.

I'd like to see if we can tease out the issue at hand a little more though; Do you think that Paolini's writing can truly be considered coincidental in given the specific parallels it shares with another work? I mean, while I would no longer consider it plagiarism, I would still consider it in pretty poor taste. Secondly, does intent matter in cases of intellectual property as much as it does in another more grievous case?

@Lord Seth:
You might have an easier time if you didn't fixate on the fine details of my statements, and then try to refute them individually out of context. I think you've completed diluted the debate process we've had going here by being so nitpicky, and you certainly seem to have lost sight of your initial objective (by your admission, this isn't even a book series you enjoy).

To clarify though, yes I do believe that killing another human being is wrong in all cases. However, I would agree that someone who kills another individual in self-defense or by accident doesn't deserve the same degree of punishment as someone who knowingly commits murder. That is a practical distinction made by the justice system for the sake of administrating social justice. Morally however, it's much more difficult to justify killing even in cases of self-defense or manslaughter, because the reasons for the murder being wrong are the same in all cases, regardless of circumstances (that a human being was deprived of their right to life due to the actions taken by another human being).

This is relevant to our discussion, because in cases of intellectual property the recourse for justice is very much the same regardless of the intent of the wrongdoer, in a way that it isn't for cases of murder vs manslaughter. We're really in agreement that individual circumstances matter to the wrongdoer, but what you don't seem to agree is that in all cases the moral wrongness of the act itself is the same.

As for whether Paolini's work amounts to copyright infringement? I already posted that my new position would be to consider it an unlicensed adapatation, given that Eragon has more in common with Star Wars than Pride and Prejudice has with Bridget Jone's Diary (a modern adaptation).

thubby

2012-06-30, 04:40 PM

That might actually be a subversion - does it still count as DEM if said DEM was rather explicitly forshadowed in the very first book?:smallconfused:

i don't have the books in front of me, care to be a bit more specific?

oblivion6

2012-06-30, 04:50 PM

i don't have the books in front of me, care to be a bit more specific?

i believe hes referring to angela's prediction. doesnt specifically say whats in the vault of souls but it was clear that it could help tremendously if eragon ever felt like he couldnt defeat galbatorix

Math_Mage

2012-06-30, 05:26 PM

The highly derivative plot didn't bother me SO much. I read Lee Child novels where the plot is basically the same in every book, and I still have fun reading them. No, what got me in the end was the overwrought, underthought writing. I did grind my way through the third book, largely out of a desire to get it over with, but I finally gave up when the fourth book opened with all the empty awkward writing and manufactured drama, and none of the plot. :smallsigh:

The Glyphstone

2012-06-30, 05:43 PM

i believe hes referring to angela's prediction. doesnt specifically say whats in the vault of souls but it was clear that it could help tremendously if eragon ever felt like he couldnt defeat galbatorix

Yeah. 'Blah, blah, all hope is lost, blah, speak your name to open the vault of souls'.

Lord Seth

2012-06-30, 10:45 PM

You might have an easier time if you didn't fixate on the fine details of my statements, and then try to refute them individually out of context. I think you've completed diluted the debate process we've had going here by being so nitpicky, and you certainly seem to have lost sight of your initial objective (by your admission, this isn't even a book series you enjoy).The reason I'm being "nitpicky" is that I'm responding to things I feel are in error, such as the plagiarism accusation. I'm not trying to defend Eragon against claims I think are valid (and I think there's plenty of issues with the series), but I do try to defend it (or anything else for that matter) against what I feel are less-than-valid criticisms.

But at your request, I'll be skipping the rest of your post to just the relevant portion...

As for whether Paolini's work amounts to copyright infringement? I already posted that my new position would be to consider it an unlicensed adapatation, given that Eragon has more in common with Star Wars than Pride and Prejudice has with Bridget Jone's Diary (a modern adaptation).Having never read Bridget Jone's Diary or Pride and Prejudice (I tried the latter but got bored...even Pride and Prejudice and Zombies only held my interest a little longer), I can't comment as to which one does in fact take more from the other. However, that doesn't prove your point, because you didn't prove that it would have been considered copyright infringement if Pride and Prejudice hadn't been public domain. You just said "hey, look! This thing might be copyright infringement. Therefore, this other thing, which I believe takes more ideas, is also copyright infringement." Even assuming that you're correct in the number of similarities being higher between Star Wars and Eragon, you can't try the "if this is copyright infringement, then this also is" because you never proved the original was copyright infringement in the first place.

To advance the argument you are trying to do, you must show a court case suitably similar to the current situation in which infringement was found to have occurred. Or at least find a copyright lawyer who could give their opinion on the matter.

Furthermore, Lucasfilms never took any legal action in regards to it as far as I can tell, which means either (1) they knew it wouldn't be considered infringement by a court or (2) they just didn't care enough to bother. In the case of 1, that just shoots it down right away, and in the case of 2, if the person supposedly getting infringed doesn't care, why should I?

TheLaughingMan

2012-06-30, 11:25 PM

That might actually be a subversion - does it still count as DEM if said DEM was rather explicitly forshadowed in the very first book?:smallconfused:

In my personal experience, vaguely foreshadowing a poorly-written plot point doesn't really save an event from being a poorly-written plot point.

ChaosLord29

2012-07-01, 12:39 AM

[QUOTE]Having never read Bridget Jone's Diary or Pride and Prejudice (I tried the latter but got bored...even Pride and Prejudice and Zombies only held my interest a little longer), I can't comment as to which one does in fact take more from the other. However, that doesn't prove your point, because you didn't prove that it would have been considered copyright infringement if Pride and Prejudice hadn't been public domain. You just said "hey, look! This thing might be copyright infringement. Therefore, this other thing, which I believe takes more ideas, is also copyright infringement." Even assuming that you're correct in the number of similarities being higher between Star Wars and Eragon, you can't try the "if this is copyright infringement, then this also is" because you never proved the original was copyright infringement in the first place.

Is see I've been using an example you didn't understand the relevance of, my bad. Bridget Jone's Diary was written, produced and direct with the intent of reviving and paying tribute to a classic work of literature (Pride and Prejudice). It's main characters, story structure, progression and conflict all directly parallel Jane Austen's original piece, with the exception that it is set in Modern London rather than Regency Era English countryside.

It is an adaptation, and is expressly declared as such by the original author, and the filmmakers. Paolini's book has more in common with Star Wars in terms of it's cast of characters, back story, and plot progression than Helen Fielding's book does with Jane Austen's original work (Bridget Jone's family for example doesn't match up with Elizabeth's at all, even though they are essentially the same character).

Eragon shows all the signs of being an adaptation of Star Wars in a high fantasy setting, except for the fact that Paolini has never admitted whether Star Wars influenced his creation of Eragon.

Copyright Infringement is never what I was trying to prove you were the one to bring that up, but if you'd like me to try and prove that Eragon illicitly imitates Star Wars's unique likeness, then provide me with a definition of what constitutes unique likeness and I will do my best. In the meantime, I would reference you to the list I already compiled of character, setting, and plot elements I already provided a few posts back that are unique to both Eragon and Star Wars, and not derivative of the monomyth.

The princess is captured by the evil empire, but not before she tries to send away the one thing which could potentially topple the evil emperor's plans to the former hero of the old age now living in hiding as a hermit/wise man.
The hero is revealed to be a rube farm boy living with his uncle (who is subsequently killed by the evil empire) and accidentally recovers said plot device which was meant for the hero of the old wars currently in hiding in the same remote region as him.
The wise hermit reveals to the plucky farm boy hero that the Empire was not always evil and once an order of mystic warriors with great power kept peace throughout the land. That is until a member of that order was driven mad by grief (his loved one having been slain by a barbaric tribe of savage creatures), and betrayed them.
The hero travels, learning from the wise old man the ways of magic/the Force so they can join the Rebellion/Varden. However, the protagonist is captured, leading him to discover that the beautiful princess is imprisoned in the same fortress.
Together with the roguish scoundrel (who is fiercely loyal, despite his proclaimed selfishness) they manage to escape with the princess, encountering a major agent of evil along the way, the head lieutenant of the evil emperor.
The wise old man sacrifices himself to save the others from the forces of the evil empire.
They escort her back to the Rebel hideout, along with the thing that could help the Rebellion win their struggle against the Empire.

Sure some of those things can also be found in other works of fiction, but I challenge you to come up with two works with so many direct, unique parallels that is not otherwise considered an adaptation or retelling.

Nekura

2012-07-01, 01:14 AM

I was given the first three books one at a time as part of a care package. I was completely unaware of any hype good or bad regarding them. The first book I enjoyed even though it was somewhat bland and unoriginal. While it was by far nowhere near the worst thing I had read it was also very far down the list of books I liked. The second book was not as good as the first and considering it was supposed to be a trilogy that did not bode well for the third book. The came Brisingr and that was among the worst things I have read. I struggled to finish it and lost count of how many times I set the book down in disgust. After I was done and knowing that it changed from a trilogy to a cycle I quickly called up my family and while thanking them for thinking of me while I was so far away asked them not to waste money buying anymore of the books for me.

I didn’t know or care how old the author was, or that his family were the ones who published him, or anyone else’s opinion of the books until after I read the first three and gave up on the series. Now on the internet you can find a lot of hate for the books but also a few people who strongly defend them. My personal opinion is that the author got worse as he wrote not better. Making matters worse his best wasn’t that good and his worst was pretty terrible. For the OP I am glad you had a better experience with the books then I did at least you are reading a lot of people don’t take the time to read anymore. If I might make a suggestion for a cycle I enjoyed much more the inheritance you should try The Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

ChaosLord29

2012-07-01, 01:30 AM