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Well, saw the crapfest movie, "Eragon". I feel sort of sorry for Christopher Paolini (never thought I'd say that) because now his beloved pet project will forever be remembered as a box office flop. But I suppose it's his own fault for signing his rights to it over to FOX, and publishing Eragon, and, you know, writing it in the first place. So I'm trying to dissipate the guilt. But here's some plot devices that I and all other aspiring fantasy writers should never, ever, eeeevveeeeer use, courtesy of "Eragon":
1) The hero is named a name that can be easily mixed up with another fantasy franchise's hero. I KNOW that it's supposed to be replacing the "d" in dragon with an "e", but it still sounds like Aragorn, and that's just unspeakable literary violence, right there.
2) The good guys stop fighting in the middle of a battle and cheer when something good happens. Seriously. What the fuck. I can't even... no.
3) Your main character successfully achieves difficult tasks "by instinct" when most others like him/her take years to master the technique. Look up Mary Sue.
4) Some character who clearly should be miles away conviently zips in front of the hero to take a spear for him and thus sacrifice his life for the "greater good". Plooooot deviiiice...
5) Random introductions of random characters and five solid minutes dwelling on them when they are never seen again and serve no purpose.
6) Easy heroics - first major battle a riveting success, major antagonist single-handedly slain, no sustainable injuries.
7) Whiny young men as heroes. How do these people get to be heroes anyway? I think there's a certain sad melancholy that comes with being a "hero", one that you just can't achieve if you're a dumb ass 15-year-old farmboy who forgets ten minutes afterwards that the only parent you've ever known has been killed BECAUSE OF YOU. Which brings up #8...
8) Convenient amnesia/lack of posttraumatic stress disorder. It's always better to mull on tragedies than forget them entirely...
9) Pointlessly beautiful princesses with pointless armor who can't fight but yet seem to knock out a bunch of villains with high-kicking chop sueys. Male fantasy, much? Also:
10) Women who are just there because you realized you didn't have enough women. Now I will admit I don't have a lot of female characters in ILIUM AGONISTES. Just be glad I didn't force it, because that's even worse.
11) Villains who are just eeeeevil. I know Galbatorix lost his dragon, poor baby, but does he ever cry about this? No. He just says great evil lines like "I suffer without the stone", which just sounds like he wants to have gallstones, proving once again how evilly fucked up he is. Besides at the end of the movie he has a dragon, so this whole "excuse" doesn't work anyway, but then again, I haven't read the books. LOTR got away with ridiculously evil villains, but that's LOTR. It can do anything, because it started the genre. New writers have to get past the tropes of LOTR if they want to establish themselves as worthy contributors to the genre... that's just the way it is, it's called progress.
12) Poverty that isn't really poverty. Poor farmboys shouldn't be able to afford (very well-tailored) leather vests, or nice clean hair. Just because you keep saying he's a poor farmboy, doesn't make him a poor farmboy. Likewise, having a lot of people huddle around in shawls while their chickens are stolen by the evil king's men is not exactly a great depiction of poverty.
Alright, I think I'm done.
1) The hero is named a name that can be easily mixed up with another fantasy franchise's hero. I KNOW that it's supposed to be replacing the "d" in dragon with an "e", but it still sounds like Aragorn, and that's just unspeakable literary violence, right there.
2) The good guys stop fighting in the middle of a battle and cheer when something good happens. Seriously. What the fuck. I can't even... no.
3) Your main character successfully achieves difficult tasks "by instinct" when most others like him/her take years to master the technique. Look up Mary Sue.
4) Some character who clearly should be miles away conviently zips in front of the hero to take a spear for him and thus sacrifice his life for the "greater good". Plooooot deviiiice...
5) Random introductions of random characters and five solid minutes dwelling on them when they are never seen again and serve no purpose.
6) Easy heroics - first major battle a riveting success, major antagonist single-handedly slain, no sustainable injuries.
7) Whiny young men as heroes. How do these people get to be heroes anyway? I think there's a certain sad melancholy that comes with being a "hero", one that you just can't achieve if you're a dumb ass 15-year-old farmboy who forgets ten minutes afterwards that the only parent you've ever known has been killed BECAUSE OF YOU. Which brings up #8...
8) Convenient amnesia/lack of posttraumatic stress disorder. It's always better to mull on tragedies than forget them entirely...
9) Pointlessly beautiful princesses with pointless armor who can't fight but yet seem to knock out a bunch of villains with high-kicking chop sueys. Male fantasy, much? Also:
10) Women who are just there because you realized you didn't have enough women. Now I will admit I don't have a lot of female characters in ILIUM AGONISTES. Just be glad I didn't force it, because that's even worse.
11) Villains who are just eeeeevil. I know Galbatorix lost his dragon, poor baby, but does he ever cry about this? No. He just says great evil lines like "I suffer without the stone", which just sounds like he wants to have gallstones, proving once again how evilly fucked up he is. Besides at the end of the movie he has a dragon, so this whole "excuse" doesn't work anyway, but then again, I haven't read the books. LOTR got away with ridiculously evil villains, but that's LOTR. It can do anything, because it started the genre. New writers have to get past the tropes of LOTR if they want to establish themselves as worthy contributors to the genre... that's just the way it is, it's called progress.
12) Poverty that isn't really poverty. Poor farmboys shouldn't be able to afford (very well-tailored) leather vests, or nice clean hair. Just because you keep saying he's a poor farmboy, doesn't make him a poor farmboy. Likewise, having a lot of people huddle around in shawls while their chickens are stolen by the evil king's men is not exactly a great depiction of poverty.
Alright, I think I'm done.
