Pen of the Gryphon

Christmas Aftermath & Eragon

Hey hi!

Yesterday was Christmas!! I got a super-thick sketchbook for which I am sooooo happy!! And "Pride and Prejudice" is on its way, but delivery times are something like a week and we ordered two or three days before Christmas...

I made my dad cry with a poem I wrote... Didn't expect that at all... I'm posting it here so you guys can tell me what you think of it...
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1194338

Anyhoo...

Ladies and Gentlemen!! The long awaited (or maybe not so long awaited) "Eragon" rant... At last I post it...

Okay day, keep in mind that I didn't edit this so much, but I did try to stay in story line sequence. But if something pops up out of order, don't sue me... I warned you. Also, I cannot find my own copy of "Eragon" so if I mispell a name or place or can't remember the name, don't kill me. If you know the correct spelling, say so, but don't flame me. (It is a long story how I lost my book, filled with alien brothers and grandparents' houses...) Also, if I leave anything out that you noticed, feel free to comment...That all said, proceed!

Spoiler Warning: If you have not read the book or watched the movie, or have watched the movie without reading the book, you might not want to read this... I will definitely be giving out spoilers right and left...

First off, the Shade was waiting in hiding to ambush Arya (my first potential mispelling), not just standing in the middle of the road. He didn't want to alert her of his presence until the last possible moment.

The Urgals had horns dadgumit!! It is only mentioned like 5 times alone on the first page! In the movie, they just look like fat men with shaved heads and face paint. Design department, where were you???

The egg is not a stone. Nor is it ever officially recognized to be a stone, unlike it is in the movie. The narrator actually says "stone" to describe the egg. No, the only reason it is ever called a stone in the book is because that is what it looks like to Eragon.

Eragon did not go hunting just that morning. He had been on the path for several days, which would make a little more sense, considering how far away the Spine is supposed to be from his house and then the house from the village.

Ayra didn't really come into the story anymore between when she is captured and Eragon rescues her. But in the movie, they have her come in a few times, all of which is just her looking into the camera with helpless expressions...

When Eragon takes the stone to Sloam, the butcher, he reacts much more violently and refuses to sell anything at all to Eragon, simply because he found the stone in the Spine, not because of the soldiers or anything. Hoarst, the blacksmith, eventually has to rescue the situation by paying for the meat himself and having Eragon to pay off the debt.

The soldiers were not just randomly carting off people in the village just yet. That doesn't happen until the second book if I remember correctly. (Having no book and no access to the library just now doesn't help anything...)

Instead of being a bum in the pub, Brom is a well-known storyteller and the people love him for his stories instead of despising him for his politcal statements. And he tells his story in a storyteller's circle at the fair and not in the corner of a rundown tavern... (The candles in the tavern really bothered me, you would think that they would break off the wax and use it to make more candles or something... All of the candles in the movie really bothered me... Sorry, pet-peeve sidenotes will probably happen also...)

Eragon and his cousin do not train to fight like they do in the movie. I do believe they wrestled occasionally, but they did not train...

It takes much longer for Saphira to hatch and Eragon is actually scared of her, not amused and familiar with her so abruptly...

Saphira doesn't look so adorable... When she was first born, she was already dignified and regal and did not gawk about so much after she gained control of her legs. There is a whole bit about how she watches the sunrise like a statue. And I am pretty sure that the scar was supposed to be round and shiny like burned skin, not in the shape of a dragon... (And noticed that the scar dragon has spikes, but does Saphira? Noooooo...)

Eragon's cousin left because he wanted to marry Sloam's daughter but had no money, so he was going to work for the miller... NOT  BECAUSE HE WAS RUNNING AWAY FROM RECRUITMENT!! For crying out loud, they totally omit the whole romance between Eragon's cousin (can't remember his name...) and Sloam's daughter (can't remember her name either...). And that is very important. It is pretty much the entire driving force behind EC's actions in the second book. (I don't know how they are going to make a second movie since they cut out all the subplots in the first book that rise up to become the main plot in the second book... ARGH!!)

Saphira does not grow up in thirty seconds... That's it... It took her months to grow and learn to speak and so on and so forth...

She also did not have a name already. When she was still young, Eragon went to Brom and asked him about dragons and got a bunch of names of dragons. Then he went home and tried them all out on Saphira, but all she kept doing was repeating the word "Eragon." Finally they settle on Saphira though, and this is the only way that Eragon realizes that the dragon is a girl...

Eragon was actually quite adament about keeping Saphria a secret from his uncle and cousin. In the movie, they never make this clear...

The whole mind-speak thing is totally undercut in the movie. It is terribly important to understand that it is not just a thing between a rider and his dragon. It is available to anyone who is trained and some that aren't and can be a deadly weapon. It is total access to the mind, not just words.

Saphira was not feathered (though I loved that look on her, since I haven't seen many feathered dragons that I like, but she pulled it off beautifully...) and she has a line of spikes running down her neck and back. These are also important, but the designers seemed to think that they weren't neccesary... Ugh... And there is a relatively humorous moment involving these spikes in the second book. But anyway, they were forgotten...

You do not get to see the Shade or Galbatorix (spelling errors are all my fault) at all in the castle. Period. The reader doesn't know anymore than Eragon what is going on in the king's head...

The Ra'zacs were not men made of bugs; they WERE bugs... They were the larval stage and only in this form can they pass for men in cloaks. When they are adults, they have wings like dragons and in the second book, there are Ra'zacs that ride on their parents instead of dragons...

The Ra'zacs are actually hunting for Eragon a few days before they stumble across Sloam.

It was winter, by the way, when this part happens...

Saphira takes Eragon to the Spine, not just on a wild ride around town. He is actually mounted on her actually and tears the insides of his legs to bits. She does not speak to him either during this first flight. When they get to the Spine, Eragon has to convince her to take him back after they have already spent a night there.

When they get back to his uncle's house, Eragon's uncle is not dead yet. NOT DEAD YET, DO YOU HEAR ME!?!?!? And Brom doesn't magically appear just then. Instead, Eragon gets Saphira to carry his uncle most of the way, then he drags him a little further and passes out eventually. Horst's wife finds them or something (little fuzzy here) and they are taken to a healer's. THERE his uncle dies after a long period of suffering caused by what look like acid burns and Eragon's legs heal.

After this, Eragon decides to go at it alone BY HIMSELF!! He steals some leather and meat and is getting ready to leave when he is stopped by Brom. There Brom exposes the scar on Eragon's palm. Eragon calls for Saphira, but then finds out that Brom has spoken to her and she will remain aloft until they sort out their differences. Brom tells him not to be stupid, to let Brom come along "because he is a storyteller and likes a good adventure." (BS answer by the way... this was one of Paolini's weak points in storytelling... Sorry man...)

They have to buy horses... And Brom's horse is white, not black...

Eragon mindspeaks with a horse when they are buying them... But this entire bit is cut out, so why not important information too?

End of Part I